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- LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS - 
CHARLES R.DARWIN HERBERT SPENCER 



THOMAS H.HUXLEY 
LORD AVEBURY^S 
RICHARD A. PROCTOR 
Sir ARCHIBALD GEIKIE 
JOHN STUART MILL 
SAMUEL R LANGLEY 
GEORGE M STERNBERG 
ROBSON ROOSEMD. 
HENRY DESMAREST 
RAY STANNARD BAKER 



ALFRED RUSSa WALLACE 
ERNST HEINRICH HAECK.'^'- 
EDWARD B.TYLOR 
ADOLPHEGANOT'5 
JOHN TYNDALL "^ 
GEORGE ILES Ti ^ 
LELAND O.HOWARD 
Sir JAMES PAGET. M.D 
W. STANLEY JEVONS 
CLEVELAND MOFFETF 



CLARENCE LUDLOW BROWNELL 
e OTHERS 




^^ 



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J- A- HJLL AND COMPANY 



1 LIBRARY of COivGHESSJ 
I Two Copies fieceived 

NOV 19 J 904 

Ccpyrigrni tntry 
&^. 2>^, tGoJA 
CLASS €X^ XXc. No; 

COPY B. 



Copyright, 1904 

BY 

A. HILL & COMPANY 



iWan's ^^lace in jBtature 

AND OTHER 
ANTHROPOLOGICAL ESSAYS 



By Thomas H. Huxley 



CDition tie %uxt 




NEW YORK 

J. A. HILL AND COMPANY 

MCMIV 



.Ha 



PEEPACE. 



I AM very well aware that the old are prone to regard their 
early performances with much more interest than their con- 
temporaries of a younger generation are likely to take in them ; 
moreover, I freely admit that my younger contemporaries might 
employ their time better than in perusing the three essays, writ- 
ten thirty-two years ago, which occupy the first place in this 
volume. This confession is the more needful, inasmuch as 
all the premises of the argument set forth in " Man's Place in 
Nature" and most of the conclusions deduced from them, are 
now to be met with among other well-established and, indeed, 
elementary truths, in the text-books. 

Paradoxical as the statement may seem, however, it is just 
because every well-informed student of biology ought to be 
tempted to throw these essays, and especially the second, " On 
the Eolations of Man to the Lower Animals," aside, as a fair 
mathematician might dispense with the reperusal of Cocker's 
arithmetic, that I think it worth while to reprint them; and 
entertain the hope that the story of their origin and early fate 
may not be devoid of a certain antiquarian interest, even if it 
possess no other. 

In 1854, it became my duty to teach the principles of bio- 
logical science with especial reference to paleontology. The first 
result of addressing myself to the business I had taken in hand, 
was the discovery of my own lamentable ignorance in respect of 
many parts of the vast field of knowledge through which I had 
undertaken to guide others. The second result was a resolution 
to amend this state of things to the best of my ability ; to which 
end, I surveyed the ground; and having made out what were 
the main positions to be captured, I came to the conclusion that 
I must try to carry them by concentrating all the energy I 
possessed upon each in turn. So I set to work to know some- 



vi PREFACE 

thing of my own knowledge of all the various disciplines in- 
cluded under the head of Biology; and to acquaint myself, at 
£rst hand, with the evidence for and against the extant solutions 
of the greater problems of that science. I have reason to believe 
that wise heads were shaken over my apparent divagations — ^now 
into the province of Physiology or Histology, now into that of 
Comparative Anatomy, of Development, of Zoology, of Paleon- 
tology, or of Ethnology. But even at this time, when I am, or 
ought to be, so much wiser, I really do not see that I could have 
done better. And my method had this great advantage; it 
involved the certainty that somebody would profit by my effort 
to teach properly. Whatever my hearers might do, I myself 
always learned something by lecturing. And to those who have 
experience of what a heart-breaking business teaching is — how 
much the can't-learns and won't-leams and don't-learns pre- 
dominate over the do-learns — will understand the comfort 
of that reflection. 

Among the many problems which came under my considera- 
tion, the position of the human species in zoological classification 
was one of the most serious. Indeed, at that time, it was a 
burning question in the sense that those who touched it were 
almost certain to burn their fingers severely. It was not so 
very long since my kind friend Sir William Lawrence, one of 
the ablest men whom I have known, had been well-nigh ostra- 
cized for his book, " On Man," which now might be read in a 
Sunday-school without surprising anybody; it was only a few 
3^ears, since the electors to the chair of Natural History in a 
famous northern university had refused to in vile a very distin- 
guished man to occupy it because he advocated the doctrine of 
the diversity of species of mankind, or what was called "poly- 
geny." Even among those who considered man from the point 
of view, not of vulgar prejudice, but of science, opinions lay 
poles asunder. Linnssus had taken one view, Cuvier another; 
and, among my senior contemporaries, men like Lyell, regarded 
by many as revolutionaries of the deepest dye, were strongly 
opposed to anything which tended to break down the barrier 
between man and the rest of the animal world. 

My own mind was by no means definitely made up about this 
matter when, in the year 1857, a paper was read before the 
Linnaean Society " On the Characters, Principles of Division and 



PREFACE vii 

Primary Groups of the Class Mammalia/' in which certain 
anatomical features of the brain were said to be "peculiar to 
the genus Homo,'' and were made the chief ground for separating 
that genus from all other mammals, and placing him in a divi- 
sion, " Archencephala/' apart from, and superior to, all the rest. 
As these statements did not agree with the opinions I had 
formed, I set to work to reinvestigate the subject ; and soon satis- 
fied myself that the structures in question were not peculiar to 
Man, but were shared by him with all the higher and many of 
the lower apes. I embarked in no public discussion of these 
matters; but my attention being thus drawn to them, I studied 
the whole question of the structural relations of Man to the next 
lower existing forms, with much care. And, of course, I em- 
bodied my conclusions in my teaching. 

Matters were at this point, when " The Origin of Species " 
appeared. The weighty sentence " Light will be thrown on the 
origin of man and his history ^^ (1st ed. p. 488) was not only 
in full harmony with the conclusions at which I had arrived, 
respecting the structural relations of apes and men, but was 
strongly supported by them. And inasmuch as Development 
and Vertebrate Anatomy were not among Mr. Darwin^s many 
specialities, it appeared to me that I should not be intruding on 
the ground he had made his own, if I discussed this part of the 
general question. In fact, I thought that I might probably 
serve the cause of evolution by doing so. 

Some experience of popular lecturing had convinced me that 
the necessity of making things plain to uninstructed people, was 
one of the very best means of clearing up the obscure corners in 
one's own mind. So, in 18G0, I took the Eelation of Man to 
the Lower Animals, for the subject of the six lectures to working 
men which it was my duty to deliver. It was also in 1860, that 
this topic was discussed before a jury of experts, at the meeting 
of the British Association at Oxford; and, from that time, a 
sort of running fight on the same subject was carried on, until 
it culminated at the Cambridge meeting of the Association in 
1862, by my friend Sir W. Flower's public demonstration of the 
existence in the apes of those cerebral characters which had been 
said to be peculiar to man. 

" Magna est Veritas et prsevalebit !" Truth is great, certainly, 
but, considering her greatness, it is curious what a long time 



viii PREFACE 

she is apt to take about prevailing. When^ towards the end of 
1862, I had finished writing " Man's Place in Nature/' I could 
say with a good conscience, that my conclusions '^ had not been 
formed hastily or enunciated crudely/' I thought I had earned 
the right to publish them and even fancied I might be thanked, 
rather than reproved, for so doing. However, in my anxiety 
to promulgate nothing erroneous, I asked a highly competent 
anatomist and very good friend of mine to look through my 
proofs and, if he could, point out any errors of fact. I was well 
pleased when he returned them without criticism on that score ; 
but my satisfaction was speedily dashed by the very earnest 
warning, as to the consequences of publication, which my friend's 
interest in my welfare led him to give. But as I have conf essfed 
elsewhere, when I was a young man, there was just a little — : a 
mere soupgon — in my composition of that tenacity of purpose 
which has another name ! and I felt sure that all the evil things 
prophesied would not be so painful to me as the giving up that 
which I had resolved to do, upon grounds which I conceived to 
be right. So the book came out ; and I must do my friend the 
justice to say that his forecast was completely justified. The 
Boreas of criticism blew his hardest blasts of misrepresentation 
and ridicule for some years ; and I was even as one of the wicked. 
Indeed, it surprises me, at times, to think how any one who had 
sunk so low could since have emerged into, at any rate, relative 
respectability. Personally, like the non-corvine personages in 
the Ingoldsby legend, I did not feel "one penny the worse/^ 
Translated into several languages, the book reached a wider 
public than I had ever hoped for ; being largely helped, I imagine, 
by the Ernulphine advertisements to which I have referred. It 
has had the honour of being freely utilized, without acknowl- 
edgment, by writers of repute ; and, finally, it achieved the fate, 
which is the euthanasia of a scientific work, of being inclosed 
among the rubble of the foundations of later knowledge and for- 
gotten. 

To my observation, human nature has not sensibly changed 
during the last thirty years. I doubt not that there are truths 
as plainly obvious and as generally denied, as those contained in 
"Man's Place in Nature/' now awaiting enunciation. If there 
is a young man of the present generation, who has taken as much 
trouble as I did to assure himself that they are truths, let him 



PREFACE ix 

come out with them, without troubling his head about the bark- 
ing of the dogs of St. Ernulphus. " Veritas praevalebit " — some 
day; and, even if she does not prevail in his time, he himself 
will be all the better and the wiser for having tried to help her. 
And let him recollect that such great reward is full payment 
for all his labour and pains. 

"Manx's Place in Nature/' perhaps, may still be useful as an in- 
troduction to the subject; but, as any interest which attaches to 
it must be mainly historical, I have thought it right to leave the 
essays untouched. The history of the long controversy about 
the structure of the brain, following upon the second disserta- 
tion, in the original edition, however, is omitted. The verdict of 
science has long been pronounced upon the questions at issue ; and 
no good purpose can be served by preserving the memory of the 
details of the suit. 

In many passages, the reader who is acquainted with the pres- 
ent state of science, will observe much room for addition ; but, 
in all cases, the supplements required, are, I believe, either in- 
different to the argument or would strengthen it. 

Thomas H. Huxley. 



CONTENTS 



Page 
I 
On the Natural History of the Man-like Apes 1 

II 

On the Relations of Man to the Loweb Animals 45 

III 
On Some Fossil Remains of Man 90 

IV 
On the Methods and Results of Ethnology 123 

V 

On Some Fixed Points in British Ethnology 147 

VI 
The Aryan Question and Prehistoric Man 157 

xi 



MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE. 

L 

o:n" the natueal histoey of the man-like apes. 

ANCIENT traditions, when tested by the severe process of 
modern investigation, commonly enough fade away into 
mere dreams: but it is singular how often the dream 
turns out to have been a half-waking one, presaging a reality. 
Ovid foreshadowed the discoveries of the geologist: the Atlantis 
was an imagination, but Columbus found a western world: and 
though the quaint forms of Centaurs and Satyrs have an existence 
only -in the realms of art, creatures approaching man more nearly 
than they in essential structure, and yet as thoroughly brutal as 
the goat's or horse's half of the mythical compound, are now not 
only known, but notorious. 

I have not met with any notice of one of these Man-like Apes 
of earlier date than that contained in Pigafetta's " Description of 
the kingdom of Congo," * drawn up from the notes of a Portu- 
guese sailor, Eduardo Lopez, and published in 1598. The tenth 
chapter of this work is entitled "De Animalibus quae in hac 
provincia reperiuntur," and contains a brief passage to the effect 
that " in the Songan country, on the banks of the Zaire, there are 
multitudes of apes, which afford great delight to the nobles by 
imitating human gestures." As this might apply to almost any 
kind of apes, I should have thought little of it, had not the 
brothers De Bry, whose engravings illustrate the work, thought 
fit, in their eleventh ^^Argumentum," to figure two of these 
" Simise magnatum delicise." So much of the plate as contains 
these apes is faithfully copied in the woodcut (Eig. 1), and it 
will be observed that they are tail-less, long-armed, and large- 
eared; and about the size of Chimpanzees. It may be that these 

* Regnum Congo : hoc est Vera Descriptio Regni Africani quod 

TAM AB INCOLIS QUAM LUSITANIS CONGUS APPELLATUR, per Philippum 

Pigafettam, olim ex Edoardo Lopez acroamatis lingua Italica excerpta, 
num Latio sermone donata ab August. Cassiod. Reinio. Iconibus et imag- 
inibus rerum memorabilium quasi vivis, opera et industria Joan. Theodori 
et Joan, Israelis de Bry, fratrum exornata. Francofurti, mdxcviii. 



MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 



apes are as much j&gments of the imagination of the ingenious 
brothers as the winged, two-legged, crocodile-headed dragon which 
adorns the same plate; or, on the other hand, it may be that the 
artists have constructed their drawings from some essentially 
faithful description of a Gorilla or a Chimpanzee., And, in 
either case, though these figures are worth a passing notice, the 
oldest trustworthy and definite accounts of any animal of this 
kind date from the 17th century, and are due to an Englishman. 

The first edition of that most amusing old book, " Purchas his 
Pilgrimage," was published in 1613, and therein are to be found 
many references to the statements of one whom Purchas terms 
"Andrew Battell (my neere neighbour, dwelling at Leigh in Essex) 




Fig. 1. — Simise magnatum delicise. — De Bry, 1598. 

who served under Manuel Silvera Perera, Governor under the 
King of Spaine, at his city of Saint Paul, and with him went 
f arre into the countrey of Angola " ; and again, " my friend, An- 
drew Battle, who lived in the kingdom of Congo many yeares," 
and who, " upon some quarrell betwixt the Portugals (among whom 
he was a sergeant of a band) and him, lived eight or nine mbneths 
in the woodes." Erom this weatherbeaten old soldier, Purchas was 
amazed to hear "^ of a kinde of Great Apes, if they might so be 
termed, of the height of a man, but twice as bigge in feature of 
their limmes, with strength proportionable, hairie all over, other- 
wise altogether like men and women in their whole bodily shape.* 

♦"Except this that their legges had no calves."— [Ed. 1626.] And 

in a marginal note, " These great apes are called Pongo's." 



NATUKAL, HISTORY OF THE MAN-LIKE APES 3 

Tliey lived on sucli wilde fruits as the trees and woods yielded, 
and in the night time lodged on the trees." 

This extract is, however, less detailed and clear in its statements 
than a passage in the third chapter of the second part of another 
work — "Purchas his Pilgrimes," published in 1625, by the same 
author — which has been often, though hardly ever quite rightly, 
cited. The chapter is entitled, " The strange adventures of An- 
drew Battell, of Leigh in Essex, sent by the Portugals prisoner to 
Angola, who lived there and in the adioining regions neere eighht- 
eene yeeres." And the sixth section of this chapter is headed 
— " Of the Provinces of Bongo, Calongo, Mayombe, Manikesocke, 
Motimbas: of the Ape Monster Pongo, their hunting: Idolatries; 
and divers other observations." 

"This province (Calongo) toward the east bordereth upon Bongo, 
and toward the north upon Mayombe, which is nineteen leagues from 
Longo along the coast. 

" This province of Mayombe is all woods and groves, so overgrowne 
that a man may travaile twentie days in the shadow without any sunne 
or heat. Here is no kind of come nor graine, so that the people liveth 
onely upon plantanes and roots of sundrie sorts, very good ; and nuts ; 
nor any kinde of tame cattell, nor- hens. 

" But they have great store of elephants' flesh, which they greatly 
esteeme, and many kinds of wild beasts ; and great store of fish. Here 
is a great sandy bay, two leagues to the northward of Cape Negro,* 
which is the port of Mayombe. Sometimes the Portugals lade logwood 
in this bay. Here is a great river, called Banna : in the winter it hath 
no barre, because the generall winds cause a great sea. But when the 
sunne hath his south declination, then a boat may goe in ; for then 
it is smooth because of the raine. This river is very great, arid hath 
many ilands and people dwelling in them. The woods are so covered 
with baboones, monkies, apes, and parrots, that it will feare any man 
to travaile in them alone. Here are also two kinds of monsters, which 
are common in these woods, and very dangerous. 

" The greatest of these two monsters is called Pongo in their language, 
and the lesser is called Engeco. This Pongo is in all proportion like a 
man ; but that he is more like a giant in stature than a man ; for he 
is very tall, and hath a man's face, hollow-eyed, with long haire upon 
his browes. His face and eares are without haire, and his hands also. 
His bodie is full of haire, but not very thicke ; and it is of a dunnish 
colour. 

" He differeth not from a man but in his legs ; for they have no calfe. 
Hee goeth alwaies upon his legs, and carrieth his hands clasped in the 
nape of his necke when he goeth upon the ground. They sleepe in the 
trees, and build shelters for the raine. They feed upon fruit that they 
find in the woods, and upon nuts, for they eate no kind of flesh. They 

* Purclias' note. — Cape Negro is in 16 degrees south of the line. 



4 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

cannot speake, and have no understanding more than a beast. The 
people of the countrie, when they travaile in the woods make fires where 
they sleepe in the night ; and in the morning, w^hen they are gone, the 
Pongoes will come and sit about the fire till it goeth out ; for they have 
no understanding to lay the wood together. They goe many together 
and kill many negroes that travaile in the woods. Many times they fall 
upon the elephants which come to feed where they be, and so beate 
them with their clubbed fists, and pieces of wood, that they will runne 
roaring away from them. Those Pongoes are never taken alive because 
they are so strong, that ten men cannot hold one of them ; but yet they 
take many of their young ones with poisoned arrowes. 

" The young Pongo hangeth on his mother's belly with his hands fast 
clasped about her, so that when the countrie people kill any of the 
females they take the young one, which hangeth fast upon his mother. 

" When they die among themselves, they cover the dead with great 
heaps of boughs and wood, which is commonly found in the forest." * 

It does not appear difficult to identify the exact region of which 
Battell speaks. Longo is doubtless the name of the place usually 
spelled Loango on our maps. Mayomhe still lies some nineteen 
leagues northward from Loango, along the coast; and Cilongo or 
Kilonga, Manikesocke, and Motimbas are yet registered by ge- 
ographers. The Cape Negro of Battell, however, cannot be the 
modern Cape Negro in 16° S., since Loango itself is in 4° S. 
latitude. On the other hand, the " great river called Banna " 
corresponds very well with the " Camma " and " Fernand Vas," 
of modern geographers, which form a great delta on this part 
of the- African coast. 

Now this " Camma " country is situated about a degree and a 
half south of the Equator, while a few miles to the north of the 
line lies the Gaboon, and a degree or so north of that, the Money 
Biver — both well known to modern naturalists as localities where 
the largest of man-like Apes has been obtained. Moreover, at 
the present day, the word Engeco, or N'schego, is applied by the 
natives of these regions to the smaller of the two great Apes which 
inhabit them; so that there can be no rational doubt that Andrew 
Battell spoke of that which he knew of his own knowledge, or, 
at any rate, by immediate report from the natives of Western 
Africa. The " Engeco,'' however, is that " other monster " whose 

* Purchas' marginal note, p. 982 : — " The Pongo is a giant ape. He 
told me in conference with him, that one of these Pongoes tooke a negro 
boy of his which lived a moneth with them. For they hurt not_ those 
which they surprise at unawares, except they look on them ; which he 
avoyded. He said their highth was like a man's but their bignesse twice 
as great. I saw the negro boy. What the other monster should be he 
hath forgotten to relate ; and these papers came to my hand since his 
death, which, otherwise, in my often conferences, I might have learned. 
Perhaps he meaneth the Pigmy Pongo killers mentioned." 



NATURAL HISTORY OF THE MAN-LIKE APES 5 

nature Battell " forgot to relate," while the name " Pongo " — 
applied to the animals whose characters and habits are so fully 
and carefully described — seems to have died out, at least in 
its primitive form and signification. Indeed, there is evidence 
that not only in Battell's time, but up to a very recent date, it 
was used in a totally different sense from that in which he 
employs it. 

For example, the second chapter of Purchas' work, which I 
have just quoted, contains "A Description and Historical Decla- 
ration of the Golden Kingdom of Guinea, &c. &c. Translated from 
the Dutch, and compared also with the Latin," wherein it is 
stated (p. 986) that — 

" The River Gaboon lyeth about fifteen miles northward from Rio de 
Angra, and eight miles northward from Cape de Lope Gonsalvez (Cape 
Lopez), and is right under the Equinoctial line, about fifteene miles from 
St. Thomas, and is a great land, well and easily to be knowne. At the 
mouth of the river there lieth a sand, three or foure fathoms deepe, 
whereon it beateth mightily with the streame which runneth out of the 
river into the sea. This river, in the mouth thereof, is at least four 
miles broad ; but when you are about the Hand called Pongo, it is not 
above two miles broad. . . . On both sides the river there standeth 
many trees. , , . The Hand called Pongo, which hath a monstrous 
high hill." 

The French naval officers, whose letters are appended to the 
late M. Isidore Geoff. Saint Hilaire's excellent essay on the 
Gorilla,* note in similar terms the width of the Gaboon, the 
trees that line its banks down to the water's edge, and the strong 
current that sets out of it. They describe two islands in its 
estuary ; — one low, called Perroquet ; the other high, presenting 
three conical hills, called Coniquet ; and one of them, M. Pranquet, 
expressly states that, formerly, the Chief of Coniquet was called 
Meni-Pongo, meaning thereby Lord of Pongo; and that the 
N'Pongues (as, in agreement with Dr. Savage, he affirms the 
natives call themselves) term the estuary of the Gaboon itself 
W Pongo. 

It is so easy, in dealing with savages, to misunderstand their 
applications of words to things, that one is at first inclined to 
suspect Battell of having confounded the name of this region, 
where his " greater monster " still abounds, with the name of 
the animal itself. But he is so right about other matters (includ- 
ing the name of the " lesser monster ") that one is loth to suspect 
the old traveller of error; and, on the other hand, we shall find 

* Archives du Museum, Tome X. 



6 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

that a voyager of a hundred years' later date speaks of the name 
" Boggoe," as applied to a great Ape, by the inhabitants of quite 
another part of Africa — Sierra Leone. 

But I must leave this question to be settled by philologers and 
travellers; and I should hardly have dwelt so long upon it except 
for the curious part played by this word " Pongo " in the later 
history of the man-like Apes. 

The generation which succeeded Battell saw the first of the 
man-like Apes which was ever brought to Europe, or, at any rate, 
whose visit found a historian. In the third book of Tulpius' 
" Observationes Medicse," published in 1641, the 56th chapter or 
section is devoted to what he calls Satyrus indicus, " called by the 
Indians Orang-autang or Man-of -the- Woods, and by the Africans 




Fig. 2.— The Orang of Tulpius, 1641. 

Quoias Morrou." He gives a very good figure, evidently from 
the life, of the specimen of this animal, "nostra memoria ex 
Angola delatum," presented to Frederick Henry Prince of Orange. 
Tulpius says it was as big as a child of three years old, and as 
stout as one of six years: and that its back was covered with 
black hair. It is plainly a young Chimpanzee. 

In the meanwhile, the existence of other, Asiatic, man-like 
Apes became known, but at first in a very mythical fashion. 
Thus Bontius (1658) gives an altogether fabulous and ridiculous 
account and figure of an animal which he calls " Orang-outang "" ; 



NATURAL HISTORY OF THE MAN-LIKE APES 



and though he says " vidi Ego cujus effigiem hie exhibeo," the 
said effigies (see Fig. 6 for Hoppius' copy of it) is nothing but a 
very hairy woman of rather comely aspect, and with proportions 
and feet wholly human. The judicious English anatomist, Ty- 
son, was justified in saying of this description by Bontius, " I 
confess I do mistrust the whole representation." 

It is to the last-mentioned writer, and his coadjutor Cowper, 
that we owe the first account of a man-like ape which has any 




Fig. 3. — The " Pygmie " reduced from Tyson's figure 1, 1699. 

pretensions to scientific accuracy and completeness. The treatise 
entitled, " Orang-outang, sive Homo Sylvestris; or the Anatomy 
of a Pygmie compared with that of a Monlcey, an Ape, and a 
Man," published by the Royal Society in 1699, is, indeed, a work 
of remarkable merit, and has, in some respects, served as a model 
to subsequent inquirers. This " Pygmie," Tyson tells us " was 
brought from Angola, in Africa; but was first taken a great deal 
higher up the country '^ ; its hair " was of a coal-black colour and 
straight," and " when it went as a quadruped on all four, 'twas 
awkwardly; not placing the palm of the hand flat to the ground, 
but it walk'd upon its knuckles, as I observed it to do when weak 



8 



MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 



and had not strength enougli to support its body," — "Erom the 
top of the head to the heel of the foot, in a straight line, it 
measured twenty-six inches." 

These characters, even without Tyson's good figure (Figs. 3 
and 4), would have been sufficient to prove his "Pygmie" to be 
a young Chimpanzee. But the opportunity of examining the 
skeleton of the very animal Tyson anatomised having most un- 
expectedly presented itself to me, I am able to bear independent 
testimony to its being a veritable Troglodytes niger^ though still 




Fig. 4. — The " Pygmie " reduced from Tyson's figure 2, 1699. 

very young. Although fully appreciating the resemblances be- 
tween his Pygmie and Man, Tyson by no means overlooked the 
differences between the two, and he concludes his memoir by sum- 
ming up first, the points in which " the Ourang-outang or Pygmie 

* I am indebted to Dr. Wright, of Cheltenham, whose paleontological 
labours are so well known, for bringing this interesting relic to my 
knowledge. Tyson's granddaughter, it appears, married Dr. Allardyce, 
a physician of repute in Cheltenham, and brought, as part of her dowry, 
the skeleton of the " Pygmie." Dr. Allardyce presented it to the Chel- 
tenham Museum, and, through the good offices of my friend Dr. Wright, 
the authorities of the Museum have permitted me to borrow, what is, 
perhaps, its most remarkable ornament. 



NATURAL HISTORY OF THE MAN-LIKE APES 9 

more resembled a Man than Apes and Monkeys do," under forty- 
seven distinct heads; and then giving, in thirty-four similar brief 
paragraphs, the respects in which " the Ourang-outang or Pygmie 
differ'd from a man and resembled more the Ape and Monkey 
kind." 

After a careful survey of the literature of the subject extant 
in his time, our author arrives at the conclusion that his " Pyg- 
mie " is identical neither with the Orangs of Tulpius and Bontius, 
nor with the Quoias Morrou of Dapper (or rather of Tulpius), 
the Barris of d'Arcos, nor with the Pongo of Battell; but that it 
is a species of ape probably identical with the Pygmies of the 
Ancients, and, says Tyson, though it "' does so much resemble 




Fig. 5. — Facsimile of William Smith's figure of the " Mandrill," 1744. 



a Man in many of its parts, more than any of the ape kind, or any 
other animal in the world, that I know of: yet by no means do 
I look upon it as the product of a mixt generation — 'tis a Brute- 
Animal sui generis, and a particular species of Ape/' 

The name of " Chimpanzee," by which one of the African Apes 
is now so well known, appears to have come into use in the first 
half of the eighteenth century, but the only important addition 
made, in that period, to our acquaintance with the man-like 
apes of Africa is contained in "A ISTew Voyage to Guinea," by 
William Smith, which bears the date 1744. 

In describing the animals of Sierra Leone, p. 51, this writer 
says : — 



10 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

" I shall next describe a strange sort of animal, called by the white 
men in this country Mandrill,* but why it is so called I know not, nor 
did I ever hear the name before, neither can those who call them so tell, 
except it be for their near resemblance of a human creature, though 
nothing at all like an Ape. Their bodies, when full grown, are as big 
in circumstance as a middle-sized man's — their legs much shorter, and 
their feet larger ; their arms and hands in proportion. The head is 
monstrously big, and the face broad and flat, without any other hair but 
the eyebrows ; the nose very small, the mouth wide, and the lips thin. 
The face, which is covered by a white skin, is monstrously ugly, being 
all over wrinkled as with old age ; the teeth broad and yellow ; the hands 
have no more hair than the face, but the same white skin, though all 
the rest of the body is covered with long black hair, like a bear. They 
never go upon all-fours, like apes ; but cry, when vexed or teased, just 
like children. 

" When I was at Sherbro, one Mr. Cummerbus, whom I shall have 
occasion hereafter to mention, made me a present of one of these strange 
animals, which are called by the natives Boggoe: it was a she-cub, of 
six months' age, but even then larger than a Baboon. I gave it in 
charge to one of the slaves, who knew how to feed and nurse it, being 
a very tender sort of animal ; but whenever I went off the deck the 
sailors began to teaze it — some loved to see its tears and hear it cry; 
others hated its snotty nose ; one who hurt it, being checked by the 
negro that took care of it, told the slave he was very fond of his country- 
woman, and asked him if he should not like her for a wife? To which 
the slave very readily replied, ' No, this no my wife ; this a white woman 
— this fit wife for you.' This unlucky wit of the negro's, I fancy, 
hastened its death, for next morning it was found dead under the wind- 
lass.'^ 

William Smith's "Mandrill," or "Boggoe," as his description 
and figure testify, was, without doubt, a Chimpanzee. 

Linnaeus knew nothing, of his own observation, of the man- 
like Apes of either Africa or Asia, but a dissertation by his 
pupil Hoppius in the "Amcenitates Academicse" (VI. "Anthropo- 
morpha ") may be regarded as embodying his views respecting 
these animals. 

The dissertation is illustrated by a plate of which the accom- 
panying woodcut. Fig. 6, is a reduced copy. The figures are 

* " Mandrill " seems to signify a " man-like ape," the word " Drill " 
or " Dril " having been anciently employed . in England to denote an 
Ape or Baboon. Thus in the fifth edition of Blount's " Gloss agraphia, 
or a Dictionary interpreting the hard words of whatsoever language 
now used in our refined English tongue . . . very useful for all such 
as desire to understand what they read," published in 1681, I find, 
" Dril — a stonecutter's tool wherewith he bores little holes in marble, 
&c. Also a large overgrown Ape and Baboon, so called." " Drill " is 
used in the same sense in Charleston's Onomasticon Zoicon, 1668. The 
singular etymology of the word given by Buffon seems hardly a probable 
one. 



NATURAL HISTORY OF THE MAN-LIKE APES 



11 



entitled (from left to riglit) 1. Troglodyta Bontii; 2. Lucifer 
Aldrovandi; 3. Satyrus Tulpii; 4. Pygmceus Edwardi. The first 
is a bad copy of Bontius' fictitious " Ourang-outang/' in whose 
existence, however, Linnaeus appears to have fully believed; for in 
the standard edition of the " Systema Naturae," it is enumerated 
as a second species of Homo; " H. nocturnus." Lucifer Aldro- 
vandi is a copy of a figure in Aldrovandus, " De Quadrupedibus 
digitatis viviparis," Lib. 2, p. 249 (1645) entitled " Cercopithecus 
formse rarae Barhilius vocatus^et originem a china ducebat." Hop- 
pius is of opinion that this may be one of that cat -tailed' people, 
of whom Nicolaus Koping affirms that they eat a boat's crew, 
"" gubernator navis " and all ! In the " Systema Naturae " Linnseus 
calls it in a note Homo caudatus, and seems inclined to regard it 
as a third species of man. According to Temminck, Satyrus 
Tulpii is a copy of the figure of a Chimpanzee published by 




Fig. 6. — The Anthropomorpha of Linnaeus. 

Scotin in 1738, which I have not seen. It is the Saiyrus indicus 
of the Systema Naturae," and is regarded by Linnaeus as possibly 
a distinct species from Satyrus sylvestris. The last, named Pyg- 
mceus Edwardi, is copied from the figure of a young " Man of the 
Woods," or true Orang-Utan, given in Edwards' " Gleanings of 
Natural History" (1758). 

Buffon was more fortunate than his great rival. Not only 
had he the rare opportunity of examining a young Chimpanzee 
in the living state, but he became possessed of an adult Asiatic 
man-like Ape — the first and the last adult specimen of any 
of these animals brought to Europe for many years. With the 
valuable assistance of Daubenton, Buffon gave an excellent de- 



12 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

scription of this creature, whicli, from its singular proportions, 
lie termed the long-armed Ape, or Gibbon. It is the modern 
Hylohates lar. 

Thus when, in 1Y66, Buffon wrote the fourteenth volume of his 
great work, he was personally familiar with the young of one 
kind of African man-like Ape, and with the adult of an Asiatic 
species — ■ while the Orang-Utan and the Mandrill of Smith were 
known to him by report. Furthermore, the Abbe Prevost had 
translated a good deal of Purchas' " Pilgrims " into French, in 
his " Histoire generale des Voyages " (1748), and there Buff on 
found a version of Andrew Battell's account of the Pongo and 
the Engeco. All these data Buffon attempts to weld together into 
harmony in this chapter entitled " Les Orang-outangs ou le 
Pongo et le Jocko." To this title the following note is appended : — 

" Orang-outang nom de cet animal aux Indes orientales : Pongo nom 
de cet animal a Lowando Province de Congo. 

" Jocko, Enjocko, nom de cet animal a Congo que nous avons adopte. 
En est Tarticle que nous avons retranche." 

Thus it was that Andrew Battell's " Engeco " became meta- 
morphosed* into " Jocko," and, in the latter shape, was spread all 
over the world, in consequence of the extensive popularity of 
Buffon's works. The Abbe Prevost and Buffon between them 
however, did a good deal more disfigurement to Battell's sober 
account than " cutting off an article." Thus Battell's statement 
that the Pongos " cannot speake, and have no understanding more 
than a beast," is rendered by Buffon " qu'il ne pent parler 
Quoiquil ait plus d' entendement que les autres animaux/^ and 
again, Purchas' affirmation, " He told me in conference with him, 
that one of these Pongos tooke a negro boy of his which lived a 
moneth with them," stands in the French version, " un pongo lui 
enleva un petit negre qui passa un an entier dans la societe de 
ces animaux." 

After quoting the account of the great Pongo, Buffon justly 
remarks, that all the " Jockos " and " Orangs " hitherto brought 
to Europe were young ; and he suggests that, in their adult condi- 
tion, they might be as big as the Pongo or " great Orang ; " so that, 
provisionally, he regarded the Jockos, Orangs, and Pongos as all 
of one species. And perhaps this was as much as the state of 
knowledge at the time warranted. But how it came about that 
Buffon failed to perceive the similarity of Smith's " Mandrill '' 
to his own " Jocko," and confounded the former with so totally 
different a creature as the blue-faced Baboon, is not so easily 
intelligible. 



NATURAL HISTORY OF THE MAN-LIKE APES 13 

Twenty years later Buffon clianged his opinion,* and expressed 
his belief that the Orangs constituted a genus with two species, 
■ — a large one^, the Pongo of Battell, and a small one, the Jocko : 
that the small one (Jocko) is the East Indian Orang; and that 
the young animals from Africa, observed by himself and Tulpius, 
are simply young Pongos. 

In the meanwhile, the Dutch naturalist, Vosmaer, gave, in 
1778, a very good account and figure of a young Orang, brought 
alive to Holland, and his countryman, the famous anatomist, 
Peter Camper, published (1779) an essay on the Orang-Utan of 
similar value to that of Tyson on the Chimpanzee. He dissected 
several females and a male, all of which, from the state of their 
skeleton and their dentition, he justly supposes to have been 
young. However, judging by the analogy of man, he concludes 
that they could not have exceeded four feet in height in the adult 
condition. Purthermore, he is very clear as to the specific dis- 
tinctness of the true East Indian Orang. 

" The Orang," says he, " differs not only from the Pigmy of 
Tyson and from the Orang of Tulpius by its peculiar colour and 
its long toes, but also by its whole external form. Its arms, its 
hands, and its feet are longer, while the thumbs, on the contrary, 
are much shorter, and the great toes much smaller in proportion. "f 
And again, " The true Orang, that is to say, that of Asia, that of 
Borneo, is consequently not the Pithecus, or tail-less Ape, which 
the Greeks, and especially Galen, have described. It is neither 
the Pongo nor the Jocko, nor the Orang of Tulpius, nor the 
Pigmy of Tyson, — it is an animal of a peculiar species, as I 
shall prove in the clearest manner by the organs of voice and the 
skeleton in the following chapters" (I. c. p. 64). 

A few years later, M. Radermacher, who held a high office in 
the Government of the Dutch dominions in India, and was an 
active member of the Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences, 
published in the second part of the Transactions of that Society $ 
a Description of the Island of Borneo, which was written between 
the years 1779 and 1781, and, among much other interesting 
matter, contains some notes upon the Orang. The small sort 
of Orang-Utan, viz. that of Vosmaer and of Edwards, he says, is 
found only in Borneo, and chiefly about Banjermassing, Mam- 
pauwa, and Landak. Of these he had seen some fifty during 
his residence in the Indies; but none exceeded 2^4 feet in length. 
The larger sort, often regarded as a chimsera, continues Rader- 

* Histoire Naturelle, Suppl. Tome 7&me, 1789. 
t Camper, CEuvres, 1., p. 56. 

t VerJiandelingen van het Bataviaasch Genootschap. Tweede Deel. 
Derde Druk. 1826. 



14 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

maclier, would perhaps long have remained so, had it not been 
for the exertions of the Kesident at Rembang, M. Palm, who, on 
returning from Landak towards Pontiana, shot one, and for- 
warded it to Batavia in spirit, for transmission to Europe. 

Palm's letter describing the capture runs thus : — " Herewith 
I send your Excellency, contrary to all expectation (since long 
ago I offered more than a hundred ducats to the natives for an 
Orang-Utan of four or five feet high) an Orang which I heard 
of this morning about eight o'clock. Eor a long time we did 
our best to take the frightful beast alive in the dense forest about 
half way to Landak. We forgot even to eat, so anxious were? we 
not to let him escape; but it was necessary to take care that he 
did not revenge himself, as he kept continually breaking off 
heavy pieces of wood and green branches, and dashing them at 
us. This game lasted till four o'clock in the afternoon, when 
we determined to shoot him; in which I succeeded very well, and 
indeed better than I ever shot from a boat before; for the bullet 
went just into the side of his chest, so that he was not much 
damaged. We got him into the prow still living, and bound him 
fast, and next morning he died of his wounds. All Pantiana 
came on board to see him when we arrived." Palm gives his height 
from the head to the heel as 49 inches. 

A yery intelligent German officer. Baron Yon Wurmb, who at 
this time held a post in the Dutch East India service, and was 
Secretary of the Batavian Society, studied this animal, and his 
careful description of it, entitled " Beschrijving van der Groote 
Borneosche Orang-outang of de Oost-Indische Pongo?" is contained 
in the same volume of the Batavian Society's Transactions. After 
Von Wurmb had drawn up his description he states, in a letter 
dated Batavia, Feb. 18, 1781,* that the specimen was sent to Eu- 
rope in brandy to be placed in the collection of the Prince of 
Orange ; " unfortunately," he continues, " we hear that the ship 
has been wrecked." Von Wurmb died in the course of the* year 
1781, the letter in which this passage occurs being the last he 
wrote; but in his posthumous papers, published in the fourth part 
of the Transactions of the Batavian Society, there is a brief de- 
scription, with measurements, of a female Pongo four feet high. 

Did either of these original specimens, on which Von Wurmb's 
descriptions are based, ever reach Europe.? It is commonly sup- 
posed that they did; but I doubt the fact. Eor, appended to the 
memoir "De I'Ourang-outang," in the collected edition of Cam- 

* " Briefe des Herrn v. Wurmb und des H. Baron von Wollzogen. 
Gotha, 1794." 



NATURAL HISTORY OF THE MAN-LIKE APES 



15 



per's works, tome i,, pp. 64-66, is a note by Camper himself, re- 
ferring to Von Wurmb's papers, and continuing thus : — " Hereto- 
fore, this kind of ape had never been known in Europe. Rader- 
macher has had the kindness to send me the skull of one of these 
animals, which measured fifty-three inches, or four feet five inches, 
in height. I have sent some sketches of it to M. Soemmering at 
Mayence, which are better calculated, however, to give an idea of 
the form than of the real size of the parts." 

These sketches have been reproduced by Fischer and by Lucse, 
and bear date 1783, Soenunering having received them in 1784. 
Had either of Von Wurmb's specimens reached Holland, they 
would hardly have been unknown at this time to Camper, who, 
however, goes on to say : — "It appears that since this, some more 




Fig. 7. — The Pongo Skull, sent by Radermacher to Camper, after 
Camper's original sketches, as reproduced by Lucse. 

of these monsters have been captured, for an entire skeleton, very 
badly set up, which had been sent to the Museum of the Prince of 
Orange, and which I saw only on the 27th of June, 1784, was more 
than four feet high. I examined this skeleton again on the 19th 
December, 1785, after it had been excellently put to rights by the 
ingenious Onymus." 

It appears evident, then, that this skeleton, which is doubtless 
that which has always gone by the name of Wurmb's Pongo, is not 
that of the animal described by him, though unquestionably simi- 
lar in all essential points. 

Camper proceeds to note some of the most important features of 
this skeleton; promises to describe it in detail by-and-bye; and is 
evidently in doubt as to the relation of this great " Pongo " to his 
"petit Orang." 



16 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

The promised further investigations were never carried out; and 
so it happened that the Pongo of Von Wurmb took its place by 
the side of the Chimpanzee, Gibbon, and Orang as a fourth and 
colossal species of man-like Ape. And indeed nothing could I00I5 
much less like the Chimpanzees or the Orangs, then known, than 
the Pongo ; for all the specimens of Chimpanzee and Orang which 
had been observed were small of stature, singularly human in as- 
pect, gentle and docile; while Wurmb's Pongo was a monster 
almost twice their size, of vast strength and fierceness, and very 
brutal in expression; its great projecting muzzle, armed with 
strong teeth, being further disfigured by the outgrowth of the 
cheeks into fleshy lobes. 

Eventually, in accordance with the usual marauding habits of 
the Revolutionary armies, the " Pongo " skeleton was carried away 
from Holland into France, and notices of it, expressly intended to 
demonstrate its entire distinctness from the Orang and its affinity 
with the baboons, were given, in 1798, by Geoflroy St. Hilaire and 
Cuvier. 

Even in Cuvier's " Tableau Elementaire," and in the first edi- 
tion of his great work, the " Eegne Animal," the "'Pongo " is 
classed as a species of Baboon. However, so early as 1818, it ap- 
pears that Cuvier saw reason to alter this opinion, and to adopt the 
view suggested several years before by Blumenbach,* and after him 
by Tilesius, that the Bornean Pongo is simply an adult Orang. 
In 182^, Budolphi demonstrated, by the condition of the dentition, 
more fully and completely than had been done by his predecessors, 
that the Orangs described up to that time were all young animals, 
and that the skull and teeth of the adult would probably be such 
as those seen in the Pongo of Wurmb. In the second edition of 
the " Regne Animal" (1829), Cuvier infers, from the "propor- 
tions of all the parts " and " the arrangements of the foramina and 
sutures of the head," that the Pongo is the adult of the Orang- 
TJtan, " at least of a very closely allied species," and this conclu- 
sion was eventually placed beyond all doubt by Professor Owen's 
Memoir published in the " Zoological Transactions " for 1835, and 
by Tenuninck in his " Monographies de Mammalogie." Tem- 
minck's memoir is remarkable for the completeness of the evidence 
which it affords as to the modification which the form of the Orang 
undergoes according to age and sex. Tiedemann first published 
an account of the brain of the young Orang, while Sandifort, 
Miiller and Schlegel, described the muscles and the viscera of the 
adult, and gave the earliest detailed and trustworthy history of 

* See Blumenbach Ahlildungen Naturhistorichen Gegenstande, No. 
12, 1810; and Tilesius, Naturhistoriche Fruchte der ersten Kaiserlich- 
Russischen Erdumsegdung, p. 115, 1813. 



NATURAL HISTORY OF THE MAN-LIKE APES 17 

the habits of the great Indian Ape in a state of nature; and as 
important additions have been made by later observers, we are at 
this moment better acquainted with the adult of the Orang-Utan, 
than with that of any of the other greater man-like Apes. 

It is certainly the Pongo of Wurmb;* and it is as certainly not 
the Pongo of Battell, seeing that the Orang-Utan is entirely con- 
fined to the great Asiatic islands of Borneo and Sumatra. 

And while the progress of discovery thus cleared up the his- 
tory of the Orang, it also became established that the only other 
man-like Apes in the eastern world were the various species of 
Gibbon — Apes of smaller stature, and therefore attracting less 
attention than the Orangs, though they are spread over a much 
wider range of country, and are hence more accessible to observa- 
tion. 

Although the geographical area inhabited by the " Pongo " and 
" Engeco " of Battell is so much nearer to Europe than that in 
which the Orang and Gibbon are found, our acquaintance with the 
African Apes has been of slower growth; indeed, it is only within 
the last few years that the truthful story of the old English ad- 
venturer has been rendered fully intelligible. It was not until 
1835 that the skeleton of the adult Chimpanzee became known, by 
the publication of Professor Owen's above-mentioned very excel- 
lent memoir " On the Osteology of the Chimpanzee and Orang," 
in the Zoological Transactions — a memoir which, by the accuracy 
of its descriptions, the carefulness of its comparisons, and the ex- 
cellence of its figures, made an epoch in the history of our knowl- 
edge of the bony framework, not only of the Chimpanzee, but of 
all the anthropoid Apes. 

By the investigations herein detailed, it became evident that the 
old Chimpanzee acquired a size and aspect as different from those 
of the young known to Tyson, to Buffon, and to Traill, as those of 
the old Orang from the young Orang; and the subsequent very 
important researches of Messrs. Savage and Wyman, the American 
missionary and anatomist, have not only confirmed this conclusion, 
but have added many new details.f 

One of the most interesting among the many valuable discov- 
eries made by Dr. Thomas Savage is the fact, that the natives in 
the Gaboon country at the present day, apply to the Chimpanzee 

* Speaking broadly and without prejudice to the question, whether 
there be more than one species of Orang. 

t See " Observations on the external characters and habits of the 
Troglodytes niger, by Thomas N. Savage, M. D., and on its organiza- 
tion, by Jeffries Wyman, M. D.," lioaton Journal of 'Natural Ilhfori/, 
vol. iv. 1843-4; and " Externpl characters, habits, and osteology of 
Troglodytes Gorilla," by the same authors, ibid. vol. v. 1847. 



18 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

a 'name — " Enche-eko " — which is obviously identical with the 
" Engeco " of Battell ; a discovery which has been confirmed by all 
later inquirers. Battell's " lesser monster " being thus proved to 
be a veritable existence, of course a strong presumption arose that 
his " greater monster," the " Pongo," would sooner or later be dis- 
covered. And, indeed, a modern traveller, Bowdich, had, in 1819, 
found strong evidence, among the natives, of the existence of a 
second great Ape, called tlie " Ingena," " five feet high, and four 
across the shoulders," the builder of a rude house, on the outside 
of which it slept. 

In 1847, Dr. Savage had the good fortune to make another and 
most important addition to our knowledge of the man-like Apes; 
for, being unexpectedly detained at the Gaboon river, he saw in 
the house of the Rev. Mr. Wilson, a missionary resident there, " a 
skull represented by the natives to be a monkey-like animal, re- 
markable for its size, ferocity, and habits." Erom the contour of 
the skull, and the information derived from several intelligent 
natives, " I was induced," says Dr. Savage (using the term Orang 
in its old general sense) " to believe that it belonged to a new 
species of Orang. I expressed this opinion to Mr. Wilson, with 
a desire for further investigation ; and, if possible, to decide the 
point by the inspection of a specimen alive or dead." The result 
of the combined exertions of Messrs. Savage and Wilson was not 
only the obtaining of a very full account of the habits of this new 
creature, but a still more important service to science, the enabling 
the excellent American anatomist already mentioned. Professor 
Wyman, to describe, from ample materials, the distinctive osteolog- 
ical characters of the new form. This animal was called by the 
natives of the Gaboon " Enge-ena," a name obviously identical 
with the "Ingena" of Bowdich; and Dr. Savage arrived at the 
conviction that this last discovered of all the great Apes was the 
long-sought " Pongo " of Battell. 

The justice of this conclusion, indeed, is beyond doubt — for not 
only does the " Enge-ena " agree with Battell's " greater monster " 
in its hollow eyes, its great stature, and its dun or iron-grey colour, 
but the only other man-like Ape which inhabits these latitudes — • 
the Chimpanzee — is at once identified, by itsi smaller size, as the 
" lesser monster," and is excluded from any possibility of being the 
"Pongo," by the fact that it is black and not dun, to say 
nothing of the important circumstance already mentioned that it 
still retains the name of " Engeco," or " Enche-eko," by which 
Battell knew it. 

In seeking for a specific name for the " Enge-ena," however, Dr. 
Savage wisely avoided the much misused " Pongo " ; but finding 



NATURAL HISTORY OF THE MAN-LIKE APES 19 

in fhe ancient Periplus of Hanno the word " Gorilla " applied to 
certain hairy savage people, discovered by the Carthaginian voy- 
ager in an island on the African coast, he attached the specific 
name " Gorilla " to his new ape, whence arises its present well- 
known appellation. But Dr. Savage, more cautious than some of 
his successors, by no means identifies his ape with Hanno's " wild 
men." He merely says that the latter were " probably one of the 
species of the Orang ; " and I quite agree with M. Brulle, that there 
is no ground for identifying the modem " Gorilla " with that of 
the Carthaginian admiral. 

Since the memoir of Savage and Wyman was published, the 
skeleton of* the Gorilla has been investigated by Professor Owen 
and by the late Professor Duvernoy, of the Jardin des Plantes, 
the latter having further supplied a valuable account of the mus- 
cular system and of many of the other soft parts; while African 
missionaries and travellers have confirmed and expanded the ac- 
count originally given of the habits of this great man-like Ape, 
which has had the singular fortune of being the first to be made 
known to the general world and the last to be scientifically investi- 
gated. 

Two centuries and a half have passed away since Battell told 
his stories about the " greater " and the " lesser monsters " to 
Purchas, and it has taken nearly that time to arrive at the clear 
result that there are four distinct kinds of Anthropoids — in East- 
em Asia, the Gibbons and the Orangs; in Western Africa, the 
Chimpanzees and the Gorilla. 

The man-like Apes, the history of the discovery of which has 
just been detailed, have certain characters of structure and of dis- 
tribution in common. Thus they all have the same number of 
teeth as man — possessing four incisors, two canines, four false 
molars, and six true molars in each jaw, or 32 teeth in all, in the 
adult condition ; while the milk dentition consists of 20 teeth — or 
four incisors, two canines, and four molars in each jaw. They are 
what are called catarhine Apes — that is, their nostrils have a 
narrow partition and look downwards; and, furthermore, their 
arms are always longer than their legs, the difference being some- 
times greater and sometimes less ; so that if the four were arranged 
in the order of the length of their arms in proportion to that of 
their legs, we should have this series — ^ Orang (1| — 1), Gibbon 
(li — 1), Gorilla (1^ — 1), Chimpanzee (ItV— 1). In all, the 
fore limbs are terminated by hands, provided with longer or shorter 
thumbs; while the great toe of the foot, always smaller than in 
Man, is far more movable than in him and can be opposed, like a 



20 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

thumb, to the rest of the foot. None of these apes have tails, and 
none of them possess the cheek-pouches common among monkeys. 
Finally, they are all inhabitants of the old world. 

The Gibbons are the smallest, slenderest, and longest-limbed of 
the man-like Apes: their arms are longer in proportion to their 
bodies than those of any of the other man-like Apes, so that they 
can touch the ground when erect ; their hands are longer than their 
feet, and they are the only Anthropoids which possess callosities 
like the lower monkeys. They are variously coloured. The Orangs 
have arms which reach to the ankles in the erect position of the 
animal; their thumbs and great toes are very short, and their feet 
are longer than their hands. They are covered with reddish brown 
hair, and the sides of the face, in adult males, are commonly pro- 
duced into two crescentic, flexible excrescences, like fatty tumours. 
The Chimpanzees have arms which reach below the knees; they 
have large thumbs and great toes; their hands are longer than 
their feet ; and their hair is black, while the skin of the face is pale. 
The Gorilla, lastly, has arms which reach to the middle of the leg, 
large thumbs and great toes, feet longer than the hands, a black 
face, and dark-grey or dun hair. 

For the purpose which I have at present in view, it is unneces- 
sary that I should enter into any further minutiae respecting the 
distinctive characters of the genera and species into which these 
man-like Apes are divided by naturalists. Suffice it to say, that 
the Orangs and the Gibbons constitute the distinct genera, Simla 
and Hylohates; while the Chimpanzees and Gorillas are by some 
regarded simply as distinct species of one genus. Troglodytes; by 
others as distinct genera — Troglodytes being reserved for the 
Chimpanzees, and Gorilla for the Enge-ena or Pongo. 

Sound knowledge respecting the habits and mode of life of the 
man-like Apes has been even more difficult of attainment than cor- 
rect information regarding their structure. 

Once in a generation, a Wallace may be found physically, men- 
tally, and morally qualified to wander imscathed through the trop- 
ical wilds of America and of Asia ; to form magnificent collections 
as he wanders ; and withal to think out sagaciously the conclusions 
suggested by his collections : but, to the ordinary explorer or col- 
lector, the dense forests of equatorial Asia and Africa, which con- 
stitute the favourite habitation of the Orang, the Chimpanzee, 
and the Gorilla, presents- difficulties of no ordinary magnitude ; and 
the man who risks his life by even a short visit to the malarious 
shores of those regions may well be excused if he shrinks from 
facing the dangers of the interior; if he contents himself with 



NATURAL HISTORY OF THE MAN-LIKE APES 21 

stimulating the industry of the better seasoned natives, and col- 
lecting and collating the more or less mythical reports and tradi- 
tions with which they are too ready to supply him. 

In such a manner most of the earlier accounts of the habits of 
the man-like Apes originated; and even now a good deal of what 
passes current must be admitted to have no very safe foundation. 
The best information we possess is that, based almost wholly on 
direct European testimony, respecting the Gibbons; the next best 
evidence relates to the Orangs; while our knowledge of the habits 
of the Chimpanzee and the Gorilla stands much in need of sup- 
port and enlargement by additional testimony from instructed Eu- 
ropean eye-witnesses. 

It will therefore be convenient in endeavouring to form a notion 
of what we are justified in believing about these animals, to com- 
mence with the best known man-like Apes, the Gibbons and 
Orangs ; and to make use of the perfectly trustworthy information 
respecting them as a sort of criterion of the probable truth or 
falsehood of assertions respecting the others. 

Of the Gibbons, half a dozen species are found scattered over 
the Asiatic islands, Java, Sumatra, Borneo, and through Malacca, 
Siam, Arracan, and an uncertain extent of Hindostan, on the main 
land of Asia. The largest attain a few inches above three feet 
in height, from the crown to the heel, so that they are shorter 
than the other man-like Apes ; while the slenderness of their bodies 
renders their mass far smaller in proportion even to this diminished 
height. 

Dr. Salomon Miiller, an accomplished Dutch naturalist, who 
lived for many years in the Eastern Archipelago, and to "the re- 
sults of whose personal experience I shall frequently have occasion 
to refer, states that the Gibbons are true mountaineers, loving the 
slopes and edges of the hills, though they rarely ascend beyond the 
limit of the fig-trees. All day long they haunt the tops of the 
tall trees; and though, towards evening, they descend in small 
troops to the open ground, no sooner do they spy a man than they 
dart up the hill-sides, and disappear in the darker valleys. 

All observers testify to the prodigious volume of voice possessed 
by these animals. According to the writer whom I have Just cited, 
in one of them, the Siamang, " the voice is grave and penetrating, 
resembling the sounds goek, goek, goek, goek, goek ha ha ha ha 
haaaaa, and may easily be heard at a distance of half a league." 
While the cry is being uttered, the great membranous bag under 
the throat which communicates with the organ of voice, the so- 
called " laryngeal sac," becomes greatly distended, diminishing 
again when the creature relapses into silence. 



22 



MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 




Fig. 8.— A Gibbon {H. pileatus) , after Wolf. 

M. Duvaucel, likewise, affirms that the cry of the Siamang may 
be heard for m.iles — m.aking the woods ring again. So Mr. Mar- 
tin * describes the cry of the agile Gibbon as " overpowering and 



* Man and Monkies, p. 423. 



NATURAL HISTORY OF THE MAN-LH^E APES 23 

deafening " in a room, and " from its strength, well calculated for 
resounding through the vast forests." Mr. Waterhouse, an ac- 
complished musician as well as zoologist, says, " The Gibbon's voice 
is certainly much more powerful than that of any singer I ever 
heard." And yet it is to be recollected that this animal is not 
half the height of, and far less bulky in proportion than, a man. 

There is good testimony that various species of Gibbon readily 
take to the erect posture. Mr. George Bennett,"^' a very excellent 
observer, in describing the habits of a male Hylohates syndactylus 
which remained for some time in his possession, says : " He in- 
variably walks in the erect posture when on a level surface; and 
then the arms either hang down, enabling him to assist himself 
with his knuckles; or what is more usual, he keeps his arms up- 
lifted in nearly an erect position, with the hands pendent ready 
to seize a rope, and climb up on the approach of danger or on the 
obtrusion of strangers. He walks rather quick in the erect posture, 
but with a waddling gait, and is soon run down if, whilst pursued, 
he has no opportunity of escaping by climbing. . . . When he 
walks in the erect posture he turns the leg and foot outwards, 
which occasions him to have a waddling gait and to seem bow- 
legged." 

Dr. Burrough states of another Gibbon, the Horlack or Hooluk : 

" They walk erect ; and when placed on the floor, or in an open field, 
balance themselves very prettily, by raising their hands over their head 
and slightly bending the arm at the wrist and elbow, and then run 
tolerably fast, rocking from side to side; and, if urged to greater speed, 
they let fall their hands to the ground, and assist themselves forward, 
rather jumping than running, still keeping the body, however, nearly 
erect." 

Somewhat different evidence, however, is given by Dr. Winslow 

Lewis :t 

" Their only manner of walking was on their posterior or inferior 
extremities, the others being raised upwards to preserve their 
equilibrium, as rope-dancers are assisted by long poles at fairs. 
Their progression was not by placing one foot before the other, 
but by simultaneously using both, as in jumping." Dr. Salomon 
Miiller also states that the Gibbons progress along the ground by 
short series of tottering jumps, effected only by the hind limbs, 
the body being held altogether upright. 

But Mr. Martin {I. c. p. 418), who also speaks from direct ob- 
servation, says of the Gibbons generally: 

* Wanderings in New South Wales, vol. ii. chap. viii. 1834- 
t Boston Journal of Natural HistorUs vol. i. 1834. 



24 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURB2 

" Pre-eminently qualified for arboreal habits and displaying' among 
the branches amazing activity, the Gibbons are not so awkward or 
embarrassed on a level surface as might be imagined. They walk erect, 
with a waddling or unsteady gait, but at a quick pace ; the equilibrium 
of the body requiring to be kept up, either by touching the ground with 
the knuckles, fiirst on one side then on the other, or by uplifting the 
arms so as to poise it. As with the Chimpanzee, the whole of the 
narrow, long sole of the foot is placed upon the ground at once and 
raised at once, without any elasticity of step." 

After this mass of concurrent and independent testimony, it can- 
not reasonably be doubted that the Gibbons commonly and habit- 
ually assume the erect attitude. 

But level ground is not the place where these animals can dis- 
play their very remarkable and peculiar locomotive pov^ers, and 
that prodigious activity v^hich almost tempts one to rank them 
among flying, rather than among ordinary climbing manunals. 

Mr. Martin (I. c, p. 430) has given so excellent and graphic an 
account of the movements of a Hylobates agilis, living in the Zoo- 
logical Gardens, in 1840, that I v^ill quote it in full : 

" It is almost' impossible to convey in words an idea of the quickness 
and graceful address of her movements : they may indeed be termed 
aerial, as she seems merely to touch in her progress the branches among 
which she exhibits her evolutions. In these feats her hands and arms 
are the sole organs of locomotion ; her body hanging as if suspended 
by a rope, sustained by one hand (the right for example), she launches 
herself, by an energetic movement, to a distant branch, which she catches 
with the left hand; but her hold is less than momentary: the impulse 
for the next launch is acquired : the branch then aimed at is attained 
by the right hand again and quitted instantaneously, and so on in alter- 
nate succession. In this manner spaces of twelve and eighteen feet are 
cleared, with the greatest ease and uninterruptedly, for hours together, 
without the slightest appearance of fatigue being manifested; and it is 
evident that if more space could be allowed, distances very greatly ex- 
ceeding eighteen feet would be as easily cleared; so that Duvaucel's 
assertion that he had seen these animals launch themselves from one 
branch to another, forty feet asunder, startling as it is, may be well 
credited. Sometimes, on seizing a branch, in her progress, she will throw 
herself, by the power of one arm only, completely round it, making a 
revolution with such rapidity as almost to deceive the eye, and continue 
her progress with undiminished velocity. It is singular to observe how 
suddenly this Gibbon can stop, when the impetus given by the rapidity 
and distance of her swinging leaps would seem to require a gradual 
abatement of her movements. In the very midst of her flight a branch 
is seized, the body raised, and she is seen, as if by magic, quietly seated 
on it, grasping it with her feet. As suddenly she again throws herself 
into action. 

" The following facts will convey some notion of her dexterity and 



NATURAL HISTORY OF THE MAN-LIKE At>Eg 25 

quickness. A live bird was let loose in her apartment ; she marked its 
flight, made a long swing to a distant branch, caught the bird with one 
hand in her passage, and attained the branch with her other hand ; her 
aim, both at the bird and at the branch, being as successful as if one 
object only had engaged her attention. It may be added that she instantly 
bit off the head of the bird, picked its feathers, and then threw it down 
without attempting to eat it. 

" On another occasion this animal swung herself from a perch, across 
a passage at least twelve feet wide, against a window which it was 
thought would be immediately broken : but not so ; to the surprise of all, 
she caught the narrow framework between the panes with her hand, in 
an instant attained the proper impetus, and sprang back again to the 
cage she had left — a feat requiring not only great strength, but the 
nicest precision." 

The Gibbons appear to be naturally very gentle, bnt there is 
very good evidence that they will bite severely when irritated — a 
female Hyloljates agilis having so severely lacerated one man with 
her long canines, that he died; while she had injured others so 
much that, by way of precaution, these formidable teeth had been 
filed down; but, if threatened, she would still turn on her keeper. 
The Gibbons eat insects, but appear generally to avoid animal food. 
A Siamang, however, was seen by Mr. Bennett to seize and devour 
greedily a live lizard. They commonly drink by dipping their 
fingers in the liquid and then licking them. It is asserted that 
they sleep in a sitting posture. 

Duvaucel affirms that he has seen the females carry their young 
to the waterside and there wash their faces, in spite of resistance 
and cries. They are gentle and affectionate in captivity — full of 
tricks and pettishness, like spoiled children, and yet not devoid oi 
a certain conscience, as an anecdote, told by Mr Bennett (L c. 
p. 156), will show. It would appear that his Gibbon had a peculiar 
inclination for disarranging things in the cabin. Among these 
articles, a piece of soap would especially attract his notice, and for 
the removal of this he had been once or twice scolded. " One 
morning," says Mr. Bennett, " I was writing, the ape being present 
in the cabin, when casting my eyes towards him, I saw the little 
fellow taking the soap. I watched him without his perceiving that 
I did so : and he occasionally would cast a furtive glance towards 
the place where I sat. I pretended to write; he, seeing me busily 
occupied, took the soap, and moved away with it in his paw. 
"When he had walked half the length of the cabin, I spoke quietly, 
without frightening him. The instant he found I saw him, he 
walked back again, and deposited the soap nearly in the same 
place from whence he had taken it. There was certainly something 
more than instinct in that action; he evidently betrayed a con- 



26 



HAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 




Fig. 9. — An adult male Orang-Utan, after Miiller and Schlegel. 

sciousness of having done wrong both, by his first and last actions 
— and what is reason if that is not an exercise of it ? " 



The most elaborate account of the natural history of the Orang- 
Utan extant, is that given in the " Verhandelingen over de Na- 
tuurlijke Geschiedenis der Nederlandsche overzeesche Bezittingen 
(1839--45)," by Dr. Salomon Miiller and Dr. Schlegel, and I shall 
base what I have to say upon this subject almost entirely on their 



NATURAL HISTORY OF THE MAN-LHvE APES 27 

statements, adding, here and there, particulars of interest from the 
writings of Brooke, Wallace, and others. 

The Orang-Utan would rarely seem to exceed four feet in height, 
but the body is very bulky, measuring two-thirds of the height in 
circumference.* 

The Orang-Utan is found only in Sumatra and Borneo, and is 
common in neither of these islands — in both of which it occurs 
always in low, flat plains, never in the mountains. It loves the 
densest and most sombre of the forests, which extend from the sea- 
shore inland, and thus is found only in the eastern half of Suma- 
tra, where alone such forests occur, though, occasionally, it strays 
over to the western side. 

On the other hand, it is generally distributed through Borneo, 
except in the mountains, or where the population is dense. In 
favourable places, the hunter may, by good fortune, see three or 
four in a day. 

Except in the pairing time, the old males usually live by them- 
selves. The old females, and the immature males, on the other 
hand, are often met with in twos and threes ; and the former occa- 
sionally have young with them, though the pregnant females usu- 
ally separate themselves, and sometimes remain apart after they 
have given birth to their offspring. The young Orangs seem to 
remain unusually long under their mother's protection, probably 
in consequence of their slow growth. While climbing, the mother 
always carries her young against her bosom, the young holding on 
by his mother's hair.f At what time of life the Orang-Utan be- 
comes capable of propagation, and how long the females go with 
young, is unknown, but it is probable that they are not adult until 

* The largest Orang-Utan, cited by Temminck, measured, when stand- 
ing upright, four feet; but he mentions having just received news of 
the capture of an Orang five feet three inches high. Schlegel and Miil- 
ler say that their largest old male measured, upright, 1.25 Netherlands 
" el " ; and from the crown to the end of the toes, 1.5 el ; the circum- 
ference of the body being about 1 el. The largest old female was 1.09 
el high, when standing. The adult skeleton in the College of Surgeons' 
Museum, if set upright, would stand 3 ft. 6-8 in. from crown to sole. 
Dr. Humphry gives 3 ft. 8 in. as the mean height of two Orangs. Of 
seventeen Orangs examined by Mr. Wallace, the largest was 4 ft. 2 in. 
high, from the heel to the crown of the head. Mr. Spencer St. John, 
however, in his Life in the Forests of the Far East, tells us of an 
Orang of " 5 ft. 2 in., measuring fairly from the head to the heel," 15 
in. across the face, and 12 in. round the wrist. It does not appear, 
however, that Mr. St. John measured this Orang himself. 

t See Mr. Wallace's account of an infant " Orang-utan," in the 
Annals of Natural History for 1856. INIr. Wallace provided his interest- 
ing charge with an artificial mother of bufifalo-skin, but the cheat was 
too successful. The infant's entire experience led it to associate teats 
with hair, and feeling the latter, it spent its existence in vain endeavors 
to discover the former. 



28 MAN'S PLACE IN NATIJRE 

they arrive at ten or fifteen years of age. A female whick lived 
for five years at Batavia had not attained one-third the height 
of the wild females. It is probable that, after reaching adult 
years, they go on growing, though slowly, and that they live to 
forty or fifty years. The Dyaks tell of old Orangs, which have 
not only lost all their teeth, but which find it so troublesome to 
climb, that they maintain themselves on windfalls and juicy 
herbage. 

The Grang is sluggish, exhibiting none of that marvellous ac- 
tivity characteristic of the Gibbons. Hunger alone seems to stir 
him to exertion, and when it is stilled, he relapses into repose. 
When the animal sits, it curves its back and bows its head, so as 
to look straight down on the ground; sometimes it holds on with 
its hands by a higher branch, sometimes lets them hang phleg- 
matically down by its side — and in these positions the Grang 
will remain, for hours together, in the same spot, almost without 
stirring, and only now and then giving utterance to his deep, 
growling voice. By day he usually climbs from one tree-top to 
another, and only at night descends to the ground, and if then 
threatened with danger, he seeks refuge among the underwood. 
When not hunted, he remains a long time in the same locality, and 
sometimes stops for many days on the same tree — a firm place 
among its branches serving him for a bed. It is rare for the 
Grang to pass the night in the summit of a large tree, probably 
because it is too windy and cold there for him; but, as soon as 
night draws on, he descends from the height and seeks out a fit 
bed in the lower and darker part, or in the leafy top of a small 
tree, among which he prefers Nibong Palms, Pandani, or one of 
those parasitic Grchids which give the primseval forests of Borneo 
so characteristic and striking an appearance. But wherever he 
determines to sleep, there he prepares himself a sort of nest: little 
boughs and leaves are drawn together round the selected spot, and 
bent crosswise over one another; while to make the bed soft, great 
leaves of Perns, of Grchids, of Pandanus fascicularis, Nipa fruti- 
cans, &c., are laid over them. Those which Miiller saw, many of 
them being very fresh, were situated at a height of ten to twenty- 
five feet above the ground, and had a circumference, on the aver- 
age, of two or three feet. Some were packed many inches thick 
with Pandanus leaves ; others were remarkable only for the cracked 
twigs, which united in a common centre, formed a regular plat- 
form. " The rude Jiut" says Sir James Brooke, " which they are 
stated to build in the trees, would be more properly called a seat 
or nest, for it has no roof or cover of any sort. The facility with 
which they form this nest is curious, and I had an opportunity of 



NATURAL HISTORY OF THE MAN-LIKE APES 29 

seeing a wounded female weave the branches together and seat her- 
seK, within a minute." 

According to the Dyaks the Orang rarely leaves his bed before 
the sun is well above the horizon and has dissipated the mists. 
He gets up about nine, and goes to bed again about five ; but some- 
times not till late in the twilight. He lies sometimes on his back; 
or, by way of change, turns on one side or the other, drawing his 
limbs up to his body, and resting his head on his hand. When th& 
night is cold, windy, or rainy, he usually covers his body with &, 
heap of Pandanus, Nipa, or Fern leaves, like those of which his 
bed is made, and he is especially careful to wrap up his head in 
them. It is this habit of covering himself up which has probably 
led to the fable that the Orang builds huts in the trees. 

Although the Orang resides mostly amid the boughs of great 
trees, during the daytime, he is very rarely seen squatting on a 
thick branch, as other apes, and particularly the Gibbons, do. The 
Orang, on the contrary, confines himself to the slender leafy 
branches, so that he is seen right at the top of the trees, a mode 
of life which is closely related to the constitution of his hinder 
limbs, and especially to that of his seat. For this is provided 
with no callosities, such as are possessed by many of the lower apes, 
and even by the Gibbons ; and those bones of the pelvis, which are 
termed the ischia, and which form the solid framework of the sur- 
face on which the body rests in the sitting posture, are not ex- 
panded like those of the apes which possess callosities, but are 
more like those of man. 

An Orang climbs so slowly and cautiously,* as, in this act, to 
resemble a man more than an ape, taking great care of his feet, 
so that injury of them seems to affect him far more than it does 
other apes. Unlike the Gibbons, whose forearms do the greater 
part of the work, as they swing from branch to branch, the Orang 
never makes even the smallest jump. In climbing, he moves alter- 
nately one hand and one foot, or, after having laid fast hold with 
the hands, he draws up both feet together. In passing from one 
tree to another, he always seeks out a place where the twigs of both 
come close together, or interlace. Even when, closely pursued, his 
circumspection is amazing: he shakes the branches to see if they 
will bear him, and then bending an overhanging bough down by 
throwing his weight gradually along it, he makes a bridge from 
the tree he wishes to quit to the next.f 

* " They are the slowest and least active of all the monkey tribe, and 
their motions are surprisingly awkwai'd and uncouth." — Sir James 
Brooke, in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society, 1841. 

t Mr. Wallace's account of the progression of the Orang almost exact- 
ly corresponds with this. 



30 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

On the ground the Orang always goes laboriously and shakily, 
on all fours. At starting he will run faster than a man, though 
he may soon be overtaken. The very long arms which, when he 
runs, are but little bent, raise the body of the Orang remarkably, 
so that he assumes much the posture of a very old man bent down 
by age, and making his way along by the help of a stick. In 
walking, the body is usually directed straight forward, unlike the 
other apes, which run more or less obliquely; except the Gibbons, 
who in these as in so many other respects, depart remarkably from 
their fellows. 

The Orang cannot put its feet flat on the ground, but is sup- 
ported upon their outer edges, the heel resting more on the ground, 
while the curved toes partly rest upon the ground by the upper 
side of their first joint, the two outermost toes of each foot com- 
pletely resting on this surface. The hands are held in the oppo- 
site manner, their inner edges serving as the chief support. The 
fingers are then bent out in such a manner that their foremost 
joints, especially those of the two innermost fingers, rest upon the 
ground by their upper sides, while the point of the free and straight 
thumb serves as an additional fulcrum. 

The Orang never stands on its hind legs, and all the pictures, 
representing it as so doing, are as false as the assertion that it de- 
fends itself with sticks, and the like. 

The long arms are of especial use, not only in climbing, but in 
the gathering of food from boughs to which the animal could not 
trust his weight. Figs, blossoms, and young leaves of various 
kinds, constitute the chief nutriment of the Orang; but strips of 
bamboo two or three feet long were found in the stomach of a male. 
They are not known to eat living animals. 

Although, when taken young, the Orang-Utan soon becomes do- 
mesticated, and indeed seems to court human society, it is naturally 
a very wild and shy animal, though apparently sluggish and melan- 
choly. The Dyaks affirm, that when the old males are wounded 
with arrows only, they will occasionally leave the trees and rush 
raging upon their enemies, whose sole safety lies in instant flight, 
as they are sure to be killed if caught.* 

* Sir James Brooke, in a letter to Mr. Waterhouse, published in the 
proceedings of the Zoological Society for 1841, says : — " On the habits 
of the Orangs, as far as I have been able to observe them, I may 
remark that they are as dull and slothful as can well be conceived, and 
on no occasion, when pursuing them, did they move so fast as to preclude 
my keeping pace with them easily through a moderately clear forest ; 
and even when obstructions below _ (such as wading up to the neck) 
allowed them to get away some distance, they were sure to stop and 
allow me to come up. I never observed the slightest attempt at defence, 
and the wood which sometimes rattled about our ears was broken by 
their weight, and not thrown, as some persons represent. If pushed 



NATURAL HISTORY OF THE MAN-LIKE APES 31 

But, though possessed of immense strength, it is rare for the 
Orang to attempt to defend itself, especially when attacked with 
fire-arms. On such occasions he endeavours to hide himself, or to 
escape along the topmost branches of the trees, breaking off and 
throwing down the boughs as he goes. When wounded he betakes 
himself to the highest attainable point of the tree, and emits a 
singular cry, consisting at first of high notes, which at leng-th 
deepen into a low roar, not unlike that of a panther. While giv- 
ing out the high notes the Orang thrusts out his lips into a funnel 
shape ; but in uttering the low notes he holds his mouth wide open, 
and at the same time the great throat bag, or laryngeal sac, becomes 
distended. 

According to the Dyaks, the only animal the Orang measures his 
strength with is the crocodile, who occasionally seizes him on his 
visits to the water side. But they say that the Orang is more than 
a match for his enemy, and beats him to death, or rips up his 
throat by pulling the jaws asunder! 

Much of what has been here stated was probably derived b;^ 
Dr. Miiller from the reports of his Dyak hunters ; but a large male, 
four feet high, lived in captivity, under his observation, for a 
month, and receives a very bad character. 

" He was a very wild beast," says Miiller, " of prodigious strength 
and false and wicked to the last degree. If any one approached 
he rose up slowly, with a low growl, fixed his eyes in the direction 
in which he meant to make his attack, slowly passed his hand be- 
tween the bars of his cage, and then extending his long arm, gave 
a sudden grip — usually at the face." He never tried to bite 
(though Orangs will bite one another), his great weapons of 
offence and defence being his hands. 

His intelligence was very great; and Miiller remarks that 
though the faculties of the Orang have been estimated too highly, 

to extremity, however, the Pappan could not be otherwise than formid- 
able, and one unfortunate man, who, with a party, was trying to catch 
a large one alive, lost two of his fingers, besides being severely bitten 
on the face, whilst the animal finally beat off his pursuers and escaped." 
Mr. Wallace, on the other hand, affirms that he has several times 
observed them throwing down branches when pursued. " It is true he 
does not throw them at a person, but casts them down vertically ; for 
it is evident that a bough cannot be thrown to any distance from the 
top of a lofty tree. In one case a female Mias, on a durian tree, kept 
up for at least ten minutes a continuous shower of branches and of the 
heavy, spined fruits, as large as 32-pounders, which most effectually 
kept us clear of the tree she was on. She could be seen breaking them 
off and throwing them down with every appearance of rage, uttering 
at intervals a loud pumping grunt, and evidently meaning mischief." — 
" On the Habits of the Orang-Utan." Annals of Natural History, 18.56. 
This statement, it will be observed, is quite in accordance with that 
contained in the letter of the Resident Palm quoted above. 



32 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

yet Cuvier, had he seen this specimen, would not have considered 
its intelligence to be only a little higher than that of the dog. 

His hearing was very acute, but the sense of vision seemed to be 
less perfect. The under lip was the great organ of touch, and 
played a very important part in drinking, being thrust out like a 
trough, so as either to catch the falling rain, or to receive the con- 
tents of the half cocoa-nut shell full of water with which the 
Orang was supplied, and which, in drinking, he poured into the 
trough thus formed. 

In Borneo the Orang-Utan of the Malays goes by the name of 
'' Mias " among the Dyaks, who distinguish several kinds as Mias 
Pappan, or Zimo, Mias Kassu, and Mias Ramhi. Whether these 
are distinct species, however, or whether they are mere races, and 
how far any of them are identical with the Sumatran Orang, as 
Mr. Wallace thinks the Mias Pappan to be, are problems which are 
at present undecided; and the variability of these great apes is 
so extensive, that the settlement of the question is a matter of 
great dif&culty. Of the form called " Mias Pappan," Mr. Wallace * 
observes, 

" It is known by its large size, and by the lateral expansion of the 
face into fatty protuberances, or ridges, over the temporal muscles, which 
have been mis-termed callosities, as they are perfectly soft, smooth, and 
flexible. Five of this form, measured by me, varied only from 4 feet 1 
inch to 4 feet 2 inches in height, from the heel to the crown of the head, 
the girth of the body from 3 feet to 3 feet Ji/^ inches, and the extent 
of the outstretched arms from 7 feet 2 inches to 7 feet 6 inches ; the 
width of the face from 10 to 13 1^ inches. The colour and length of the 
hair varied in different individuals, and in different parts of the same 
individual ; some possessed a rudimentary nail on the great toe, others 
none at all ; but they otherwise present no external differences on which 
to establish even varieties of a species. 

" Yet, when we examine the crania of these individuals, we find 
remarkable differences of form, proportion, and dimension, no two being 
exactly alike. The slope of the profile, and the projection of the muzzle, 
together with the size of the cranium, offer differences as decided as 
those existing between the most strongly marked forms of the Caucasian 
and African crania in the human species. The orbits vary in width 
and height, the cranial ridge is either single or double, either much, or 
little developed, and the zygomatic aperture varies considerably in size. 
This variation in the proportions of the crania enables us satisfactorily 
to explain the marked difference presented by the single-crested and 
double-crested skulls, which have been thought to prove the existence of 
two large species of Orang. The external surface of the skull varies 
considerably in size, as do also the zygomatic aperture and the temporal 

* On the Orang-Utan, or Mias of Borneo, Annals of Natural History, 
1856. 



NATURAL HISTORY OF THE MAN-LIKE APES 33 

muscle ; but they bear no necessary relation to each other, a small muscle 
often existing with a large cranial surface, and vice versa. Now, those 
skulls which have the largest and strongest jaws and the widest zygomatic 
aperture, have the muscles so large that they meet on the crown of the 
skull, and deposit the bony ridge which separates them, and which is 
the highest in that which has the smallest cranial surface. In those 
which combine a large surface with comparatively weak jaws, and small 
zygomatic aperture, the muscles, on each side, do not extend to the 
crown, a space of from 1 to 2 inches remaining between them, and along 
their margins small ridges are formed. Intermediate forms are found, 
in which the ridges meet only in the hinder part of the skull. The form 
and size of the ridges are therefore independent of age, being sometimes 
more strongly developed in the less aged animal. Professor Temminck 
states that the series of skulls in the Leyden Museum shows the same 
result." 

Mr. Wallace observed two male adult Orangs (Mias Kassu of 
the Dyaks), however, so very different from any of these that he 
concludes them to be specifically distinct ; they were respectively 
3 feet 8^2 inches and 3 feet 9% inches high, and possessed no sign 
of the cheek excrescences, but otherwise resembled the larger kinds. 
The skull has no crest, but two bony ridges, 1% inches to 2 inches 
apart, as in the Simia morio of Professor Owen. The teeth, how- 
ever, are immense, equalling or surpassing those of the other spe- 
cies. The females of both these kinds, according to Mr. Wallace, 
are devoid of excrescences, and resemble the smaller males, but are 
shorter by 1% to 3 inches, and their canine teeth are comparatively 
small, subtruncated and dilated at the base, as in the so-called 
Simia raorio, which is, in all probability, the skull of a female of 
the same species as the smaller males. Both males and females of 
this smaller species are distinguishable, according to Mr. Wal- 
lace, by the comparatively large size of the middle incisors of the 
"upper jaw. 

So far as I am aware, no one has attempted to dispute the ac- 
curacy of the statements which I have just quoted regarding the 
habits of the two Asiatic man-like apes ; and if true, they must be 
admitted as evidence, that such an Ape — 

Istly, May readily move along the gTound in the erect, or semi- 
erect, position, and without direct support from its arms. 

2ndly, That it may possess an extremely loud voice, so loud as to 
be readily heard one or two miles. 

3rdly, That it may be capable of great viciousness and violence 
when irritated: and this is especially true of adult males. 

4thly, That it may build a nest to sleep in. 

Such being well established facts respecting the Asiatic An- 



34 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

thropoids, analogy alone might justify ns in expecting the African 
species to offer similar peculiarities, separately or combined; or, 
at any rate, would destroy the force of any attempted a priori 
argument against such direct testimony as might be adduced in 
favour of their existence. And, if the organization of any of the 
African Apes could be demonstrated to fit it better than either of 
its Asiatic allies for the erect position and for efficient attack, 
there would be still less reason for doubting its occasional adoption 
of the upright attitude or of aggressive proceedings. 

From the time of Tyson and Tulpius downwards, the habits of 
the young Chimpanzee in a state of captivity have been abundantly 
reported and commented upon. But trustworthy evidence as to 
the manners and customs of adult anthropoids of this species, in 
their native woods, was almost wanting up to the time of the pub- 
lication of the paper by Dr. Savage, to which I already referred; 
containing notes of the observations which he made, and of the 
information which he collected from sources which he considered 
trustworthy, while resident at Cape Palmas, at the north-western 
limit of the Bight of Benin. 

The adult Chimpanzees measured by Dr. Savage, never ex- 
ceeded, though the males may almost attain, five feet in height. 

" When at rest the sitting posture is that generally assumed. They 
are sometimes seen standing and walking, but when thus detected, they 
immediately take to all fours, and flee from the presence of the observer. 
Such is their organisation that they cannot stand erect, but lean forward. 
Hence they are seen, when standing, with the hands clasped over the 
occiput, or the lumbar region, which would seem necessary to balance or 
ease of posture. 

" The toes of the adult are strongly flexed and turned inwards, and 
cannot be perfectly straightened. In the attempt the skin gathers into 
thick folds on the back, showing that the full expansion of the foot, 
as is necessary in walking, is unnatural. The natural position is on all 
fours, the body anteriorly resting upon the knuckles. These are greatly 
enlarged, with the skin protuberant and thickened like the sole of the foot. 

" They are expert climbers, as one' would suppose from their organisa- 
tion. In their gambols they swing from limb to limb to a great distance, 
and leap with astonishing agility. It is not unusual to see the ' old folks ' 
(in the language of an observer) sitting under a tree regaling themselves 
with fruit and friendly chat, while their ' children ' are leaping around 
them, and swinging from tree to tree with boisterous merriment. 

" As seen here, they cannot be called gregarious, seldom more than five, 
or ten at most, being found together. It has been said, on good authority, 
that they occasionally assemble in large numbers, in gambols. My 
informant asserts that he saw once not less than fifty so engaged ; hoot- 
ing, screaming, and drumming with sticks upon old logs, which is done 
in the latter case with equal facility by the four extremities. They do 



NATURAL HISTORY OF THE MAN-LIKE APES 35 

not appear ever to act on the offensive, and seldom, if ever really, on 
the defensive. When about to be captured, they resist by throw^ing their 
arms about their opponent, and attempting to dravy him into contact 
with their teeth." (Savage, I. c. p. 384.) 

With respect to this last point Dr. Savage is very explicit in 
another place : 

"Biting is their principal art of defence. I have seen one man who 
had been thus severely wounded in the feet. 

" The strong development of the canine teeth in the adult would seem 
to indicate a carnivorous propensity ; but in no state save that of 
domestication do they manifest it. At first they reject flesh, but easily 
acquire a fondness for it. The canines are early developed, and evidently 
designed to act the important part of weapons of defence. When in 
contact with man almost the first effort of the animal is — to hite. 

" They avoid the abodes of men, and build their habitations in trees. 
Their construction is more that of nests than huts, as they have been 
erroneously termed by some naturalists. They generally build not far 
above the ground. Branches or twigs are bent, or partly broken, and 
crossed, and the whole supported by the body of a limb or a crotch. 
Sometimes a nest will be found near the end of a strong leafy hranch 
twenty or thirty feet from the ground. One I have lately seen that could 
not be less than forty feet, and more probably it was fifty. But this 
is an unusual height. 

" Their dwelling-place is not permanent, but changed in pursuit of 
food and solitude, according to the force of circumstances. We more 
often see them in elevated places ; but this arises from the fact that 
the low grounds, being more favourable for the natives' rice-farms, are 
the oftener cleared, and hence are almost always wanting in suitable 
trees for their nests. . . . It is seldom that more than one or two 
nests are seen upon the same tree, or in the same neighbourhood : five 
have been found, but it was an unusual circumstance." . . . 

" They are very filthy in their habits. . . . It is a tradition with 
the natives generally here, that they were once members of their own 
tribe : that for their depraved habits they were expelled from all human 
society, and, that through an obstinate indulgence of their vile pro- 
pensities, they have degenerated into their present state and organisation. 
They are, however, eaten by them, and when cooked with the oil and 
pulp of the palm-nut considered a highly palatable morsel. 

" They exhibit a remarkable degree of intelligence in their habits, and, 
on the part of the mother, much affection for their young. The second 
female described was upon a tree when first discovered, with her mate 
and two young ones (a male and a female). Her first impulse was 
to descend with great rapidity and make off into the thicket, with her 
mate and female offspring. The young male remaining behind, she soon 
returned to the rescue. She ascended and took him in 'her arms, at 
which moment she was shot, the ball passing through the fore-arm of 
the young one, on its way to the heart of the mother. . . . 



36 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

" In a recent case, the mother, when discovered, remained upon the 
tree with her offspring, watching intently the movements of the hunter. 
As he took aim, she motioned with her hand, precisely in the manner 
of a human being, to have him desist and go away. When the wound 
has not proved instantly fatal, they have been known to stop the flow of 
blood by pressing with the hand upon the part, and when this did not 
succeed, to apply leaves and grass. . . . When shot, they give a 
sudden screech, not unlike that of a human being in sudden and acute 
distress." 

The ordinary voice of the Chimpanzee, however, is affirmed to 
be hoarse, guttural, and not very loud, somewhat like " whoo- 
whoo." (I. c. p. 365.) 

The analogy of the Chimpanzee to the Orang, in its nest-build- 
ing habit and in the mode of forming its nest, is exceedingly in- 
teresting; while, on the other hand, the activity of this ape, and 
its tendency to bite, are particulars in which it rather resembles 
the Gibbons. In extent of geographical range, again, the Chim- 
panzees — which are found from Sierra Leone to Congo — remind 
one of the Gibbons, rather than of either of the other man-like 
apes; and it seems not unlikely that, as is the case with the Gib- 
bons, there may be several species spread over the geographical 
area of the genus. 

The same excellent observer, from whom I have borrowed the 
preceding account of the habits of the adult Chimpanzee, published 
fifteen years ago,* an account of the Gorilla, which has, in its most 
essential points, been confirmed by subsequent observers, and to 
which so very little has really been added, that in justice to Dr. 
Savage I give it almost in full. 

"It should be borne in mind that my account is based upon the state- 
ments of the aborigines of that region (the Gaboon). In this connection, 
it may also be proper for me to remark, that having been a missionary 
resident for several years, studying, from habitual intercourse, the African 
mind and character, I felt myself prepared to discriminate and decide 
upon the probability of their statements. Besides, being familiar with 
the history and habits of its interesting congener ( Trog. niger, Geoff. ) , 
I was able to separate their accounts of the two animals which, having 
the same locality and a similarity of habit, are confounded in the minds 
of the mass, especially as but few — such as traders to the interior and 
huntsmen — have ever seen the animal in question. 

" The tribe from which our knowledge of the animal is derived, 
and whose territory forms its habitat, is the Mpongwe, occupying both 
banks of the River Gaboon, from its mouth to some fifty or sixty miles 
upward. ... 

* Notice of the external characters and habits of Troglodytes Gorilla. 
Boston Journal of Natural History. 



NATURAL HISTORY OF THE MAN-LIKE APES 



37 




Fig. 10.— The Gorilla, after Wolf. 

" If the word ' Pongo ' be of African origin, it is probably a corrup- 
tion of the word Mpongwe, the name of the tribe on the banks of the 
Gaboon, and hence applied to the region they inhabit. Their local name 
for the Chimpanzee is Enche-eko, as near as it can be Anglicised, from 
which the common term ' Jocko ' probably comes. The Mpongwe appella- 
tion for its new congener is Enge-ena, prolonging the sound of the first 
vowel, and slightly sounding the second. 

" The habitat of the Enge-ena is the interior of lower Guinea, whilst 
that of the Enche-eko, is nearer the seaboard. 



38 



MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 



"Its height is about five feet; it is disproportionately broad across the 
shoulders, thickly covered with coarse black hair, which is said to be 
similar in its arrangement to that of the Enche-eko; with age it becomes 
gray, which fact has given rise to the report that both animals are seen 
of different colours. 

•• Head. — The prominent features of the head are, the great width 
and elongation of the face, the depth of the molar region, the branches 
of the lower jaw being very deep and extending far backward, and the 
comparative smallness of the cranial portion ; the eyes are very large, 
and said to be like those of the Enche-eko, a bright hazel ; nose broad 
and flat, slightly elevated towards the root ; the muzzle broad, and 
prominent lips and chin, with scattered gray hairs ; the under lip highly 
mobile, and capable of great elongation when the animal is enraged, 
then hanging over the chin ; skin of the face and ears naked, and of a 
dark brown, approaching to black. 

" The most remarkable feature of the head is a high ridge, or crest of 
hair, in the course of the sagittal suture, which meets posteriorly with 




bringing down the hairy ridge and 
to present an indescribably ferocious 



Fig. 11. — Gorilla walking (after Wolf). 

a transverse ridge of the same, but less prominent, running round from 
the back of one ear to the other. The animal has the power of moving 
the scalp freely forward and back, and when enraged is said to contract 
it strongly over the brow, thus 
pointing the hair forward, so as 
aspect. 

" Neck short, thick, and hairy ; chest and shoulders very broad, said 
to be fully double the size of the Enche-ekos ; arms very long, reaching 
some way below the knee — the fore-arm much the shortest ; hands very 
large, the thumbs much larger than the fingers. 

" The gait is shuflaing ; the motion of the body, which is never upright 
as in man, but bent forward, is somewhat rolling, or from side to side. 
The arms being longer than the Chimpanzee, it does not stoop as much 
in walking ; like that animal, it makes progression by thrusting its arms 
forward, resting the hands on the ground, and then giving the body a 
half jumping, half swinging motion between them. In this act it is said 
not to flex the fingers, as does the Chimpanzee, resting on its knuckles, 



NATURAL HISTORY OF THE MAN-LHvE APES 39 

but to extend them, making a fulcrum of the hand. When it assumes 
the walking posture, to which it is said to be much inclined, it balances 
its huge body by flexing its arms upward. 

" They live in bands, but are not so numerous as the Chimpanzees ; 
the females generally exceed the other sex in number. My informants 
all agree in the assertion that but one adult male is seen in a band ; 
that when the young males grow up, a contest takes place for mastery, 
and the strongest, by killing and driving out the others, establishes 
himself as the head of the community." 

Dr. Savage repudiates the stories about the Gorillas carrying off 
women and vanquishing elephants and then adds — 

" Their dwellings, if they may be so called, are similar to those of 
the Chimpanzee, consisting simply of a few sticks and leafy branches, 
supported by the crotches and limbs of trees : they afford no shelter, and 
are occupied only at night. 

" They are exceedingly ferocious, and always offensive in their habits, 
never running from man, as does the Chimpanzee. They are objects 
of terror to the natives, and are never encountered by them except on 
the defensive. The few that have been captured were killed by elephant 
hunters and native traders, as they came suddenly upon them while 
passing through the forests. 

" It is said that when the male is first seen he gives a terrific yell, 
that resounds far and wide through the forest, something like kh — ah ! 
kh — ah ! prolonged and shrill. His enormous jaws are widely opened 
at each expiration, his under lip hangs over the chin, and the hairy 
ridge and scalp are contracted upon the brow, presenting an aspect of 
indescribable ferocity. 

" The females and young, at the first cry, quickly disappear. He 
then approaches the enemy in great fury, pouring out his horrid cries 
in quick succession. The hunter awaits his approach with his gun 
extended ; if his aim is not sure, he permits the animal to grasp the 
barrel, and as he carries it to his mouth (which is his habit) he fires. 
Should the gun fail to go off the barrel (that of the ordinary musket, 
which is thin) is crushed between his teeth, and the encounter soon 
proves fatal to the hunter. 

" In the wild state, their habits are in general like those of the 
Troglodytes niger, building their nests loosely in trees, living on similar 
fruits, and changing their place of resort from force of circumstances." 

Dr. Savage's observations were confirmed and supplemented by 
those of Mr. Ford, who communicated an interesting paper on the 
Gorilla to the Philadelphian Academy of Sciences, in 1852. With 
respect to the geographical distribution of this greatest of all the 
man-like Apes, Mr. Ford remarks: 

" This animal inhabits the range of mountains that traverse the in- 
terior of Guinea, from the Cameroon in the north, to Angola in the 



40 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

south, and about 100 miles inland, and called by the geographers Crystal 
Mountains. The limit to which this animal extends, either north or 
south, I am unable to define. But that limit is doubtless some distance 
north of this river [Gaboon]. I was able to certify myself of this fact 
in a late excursion to the head- waters of the Mooney (Danger) River, 
which comes into the sea some sixty miles from this place. I was 
informed (credibly, I think) that they were numerous among the moun- 
tains in which that river rises, and far north of that. 

" In the south, this species extends to the Congo River, as I am told 
by native traders who have visited the coast between the Gaboon and 
that river. Beyond that, I am not informed. This animal is only found 
at a distance from the coast in most cases, and, according to my best 
information, approaches it nowhere so nearly as on the south side of 
this river, where they have been found within ten miles of the sea. This, 
however, is only of late occurrence. I am informed by some of the oldest 
Mpongwe men that formerly he was only found on the sources of the 
rivers, but that at present he may be found within half-a-day's walk of 
its mouth. Formerly he inhabited the mountainous ridge where Bushmen 
alone inhabited, but now he boldly approaches the Mpongwe plantations. 
This is doubtless the reason of the scarcity of information in years past, 
as the opportunities for receiving a knowledge of the animal have not 
been wanting ; traders having for one hundred years frequented this river, 
and specimens, such as have been brought here within a year, could 
not have been exhibited without having attracted the attention of the 
most stupid." 

One*specimen Mr. Ford examined weighed 170 lbs., without the 
thoracic, or pelvic, viscera, and measured four feet four inches 
round the chest. This writer describes so minutely and graphically 
the onslaught of the Gorilla — though he does not for a moment 
pretend to have witnessed the scene — that I am tempted to give 
this part of his paper in full, for comparison with other narra- 
tives : 

" He always rises to his feet when making an attack, though he 
approaches his antagonist in a stooping posture. 

" Though he never lies in wait, yet, when he hears, sees, or scents a 
man, he immediately utters his characteristic cry, prepares for an attack, 
and always acts on the offensive. The cry he utters resembles a grunt 
more than a growl, and is similar to the cry of the Chimpanzee, when 
irritated, but vastly louder. It is said to be audible at a great distance. 
His preparation consists in attending the females and young ones, by 
whom he is usually accompanied, to a little distance. He, however, soon 
returns, with his crest erect and projecting forward, his nostrils dilated, 
and his under-lip throv^m down, at the same time uttering his character- 
istic yell, designed, it would seem, to terrify his antagonist. Instantly, 
unless he is disabled by a well-directed shot, he makes an onset, and, 
striking his antagonist with the palm of his hands, or seizing him with 



NATURAL HISTORY OF THE MAN-LIKE APES 41 

a grasp from which there is no escape, he dashes him upon the ground, 
and lacerates him with his tusks. 

" He is said to seize a musket, and instantly crush the barrel between 
his teeth. . . . This animal's savage nature is very well shown 
by the implacable desperation of a young one that was brought here. 
It was taken very young, and kept four months, and many means were 
used to tame it ; but it was incorrigible, so that it bit me an hour 
before it died." 

Mr. Ford discredits the house-building and elephant-driving sto- 
ries, and says that no well-informed natives believe them. They 
are tales told to children. 

I might quote other testimony to a similar effect, but, as it ap- 
pears to me, less carefully weighed and sifted, from the letters of 
MM. Franquet and Gautier LabouUay, appended to the memoir of 
M. I. G. St. Hilaire, which I have already cited. 

Bearing in mind what is known regarding the Orang and the 
Gibbon, the statements of Dr. Savage and Mr. Ford do not appear 
to me to be justly open to criticism on a priori grounds. The Gib- 
bons, as we have seen, readily assume the erect posture, but the 
Gorilla is far better fitted by its organisation for that attitude 
than are the Gibbons : if the laryngeal pouches of the Gibbons, as 
is very likely, are important in giving volume to a voice which 
can be heard for half a league, the Gorilla, which has similar sacs, 
more largely developed, and whose bulk is fivefold that of a Gib- 
bon, may well be audible for twice that distance. If the Orang 
fights with its hands, the Gibbons and Chimpanzees with the teeth, 
the Gorilla may, probably enough, do either or both; nor is there 
anything to be said against either Chimpanzee or Gorilla building 
a nest, when it is proved that the Orang-Utan habitually performs 
that feat. 

With all this evidence, now ten to fifteen years old, before the 
world, it is not a little surprising that the assertions of a recent 
traveller, who, so far as the Gorilla is concerned, really does very 
little more than repeat, on his own authority, the statements of 
Savage and of Ford, should have met with so much and such bitter 
opposition. If subtraction be made of what was known before, 
the sum and substance of what M. Du Chaillu has afiirmed as a 
matter of his own observation respecting the Gorilla, is, that, in 
advancing to the attack, the great brute beats his chest with his 
fists. I confess I see nothing very improbable, or very much worth 
disputing about, in this statement. 

With respect to the other man-like Apes of Africa, M. Du Chaillu 
tells us absolutely nothing, of his own knowledge, regarding the 
common Chimpanzee; but he informs us of a bald-headed species 



42 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

or varietyi, the nschiego mbouve, which builds itself a shelter, and 
of another rare kind with a comparatively small face, large facial 
angle, and peculiar note, resembling " Kooloo." 

As the Orang shelters itself with a rough coverlet of lea^^/'es, and 
the common Chimpanzee, according to that ejminently trustworthy 
observer Dr. Savage, makes a sound like " Whoo-whoo," — the 
grounds of the summary repudiation with which M. Du Chaillu's 
statements on these matters have been met are not obvious. 

If I have abstained from quoting M. Du -Chaillu's work, then, 
it is not because I discern any inherent improbability in his as- 
sertions respecting the man-like Apes ; lior from any wish to throw 
suspicion on his veracity; but because, in my opinion, so long as 
his narrative remains in its present state of unexplained and ap- 
parently inexplicable confusion, it has no claim to original author- 
ity respecting any subject whatsoever. 

It may be truth, but it is not evidence. 

African Cannibalism in the Sixteenth Century. 

In turning over Pigafetta's version of the narrative of Lopez, which 
I have quoted above, I came upon so curious and unexpected an anticipa- 
tion, by some two centuries and a half, of one of the most startling 
parts of M. Du Chaillu's narrative, that I cannot refrain from drawing 
attention to it in a note, although I must confess that the subject is 
not strictly relevant to the matter in hand. 

In the fifth chapter of the first book of the " Descriptio," " Concerning 
the northern part of the Kingdom of Congo and its boundaries," is men- 
tioned a people whose king is called " Maniloango," and who live under 
the equator, and as far westward as Cape Lopez. This appears to be 
the country now inhabited by the Ogobai and Bakalai according to 
M. Du Chaillu. — "Beyond these dwell another' people called, ' Anziques,* 
of incredible ferocitjs for they eat one another, sparing neither friends 
nor relations." 

These people are armed with small bows bound tightly round with 
snake skins, and strung with a reed or rush. Their arrows, short and 
slender, but made of hard wood, are shot with great rapidity. They 
have iron axes, the handles of which are bound round with snake skins, 
and swords with scabbards of the same material ; for defensive armour 
they employ elephant hides. They cut their skins when young, so as to 
produce scars. " Their butchers' shops are filled with human flesh 
instead of that of oxen or sheep. For they eat the enemies whom they 
take in battle. They fatten, slay and devour their slaves also, unless 
they think they shall get a good price for them ; and, moreover, sometimes 
for weariness of life or desire of glory (for they think it a great thing 
and the sign of a generous soul to despise life), or for love of their 
rulers, offer themselves up for food." 

" There are indeed many cannibals, as in the Eastern Indies and in 



NATURAL HISTORY OE' THE MAN-LIKE APES 



43 



Brazil and elsewhere, but none such as these, since the others only eat 
their enemies, but these their own blood relations." 

The careful illustrators of Pigafetta have done their best to enable 
the reader to realize this account of the " Anziques," and the unexampled 
butcher's shop represented in Fig. 12, is a facsimile of part of their 
Plate XII. 




yftPAfESLEV. 



Fig. 12. — Butcher's Shop of the Anziques Anno 1598. 



M. Du Chaillu's account of the Fans accords most singularly with 
what Lopez here narrates of the Anziques. He speaks of their small 
crossbows and little arrows, of their axes and knives, " ingeniously 
sheathed in snake skins." " They tattoo themselves more than any other 
tribes I have met north of the equator." And all the world knows what 



44 



MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 




e o 



OfSS 

rO +* 



^- 



00 



o o 
e CO 






to " 



:^ 



or la 

si 
te Si 



:'^ 



00 



o 



to ^ ?s 
o *^ o 

? =0 
fS -Ks -K* 



M. Du Chaillu says of thetr cannibalism — " Presently we passed a 
woman who solved all doubt. She bore with her a piece of the thigh of 
a human body, just as we should go to market and carry thence a roast 
or steak." M. Du Chaillu's artist cannot generally be accused of any 
want of courage in embodying the statements of his author, and it is to 
be regretted that, with so good an excuse, he has not furnished us with 
a fitting companion to the sketch of the brothers De Bry. 



RELATIONS OF MAN TO THE LOWER ANIMALS 



n. 

ON THE EELATIONS OF MAN TO THE LOWEE 

ANIMALS. 

Multis videri poterit, majorem esse differentiam Simise et Hominis, quam 
diei et noctis ; verum tamen hi, comparatione instituta inter summos 
Europse Heroes et Hottentottes ad Caput bonse spei degentes, difficillime 
sibi persuadebunt, has eosdem habere natales ; vel si virginem nobilem 
aulicam, maxime comtam et humanissimam, conferre vellent cum 
homine sylvestri et sibi relicto, vix augurari possent, hunc et illam 
ejusdem esse speciei. — Linncei Amcenitates Acad. " Anthropomorplia." 

THE question of questions for mankind — the problem which 
underlies all others, and is more deeply interesting than 
any other — is the ascertainment of the place which Man 
occupies in nature and of his relations to the universe of things. 
Whence our race has come; what are the limits of our power over 
nature, and of nature's power over us; to what goal we are tend- 
ing; are the problems which present themselves anew and with un- 
diminished interest to every man born into the world. Most of us, 
shrinking from the difficulties and dangers which beset the seeker 
after original answers to these riddles, are contented to ignore them 
altogether, or to smother the investigating spirit under the feather- 
bed of respected and respectable tradition. But, in every age, one 
or two restless spirits, blessed with that constructive genius, which 
can only build on a secure foundation, or cursed with the spirit of 
mere scepticism, are unable to follow in the well-worn and com- 
fortable track of their forefathers and contemporaries, and un- 
mindful of thorns and stumbling-blocks, strike out into paths of 
their own. The sceptics end in the infidelity which asserts the 
problem to be insoluble, or in the atheism which denies the exist- 
ence of any orderly progress and governance of things : the men 
of genius propound solutions which grow into systems of Theology 
or of Philosophy, or veiled in musical language which suggests 
more than it asserts, take the shape of the Poetry of an epoch. 

Each such answer to the great question, invariably asserted by 
the followers of its propounder, if not by himself, to be complete 



46 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

and final, remains in Kigh authority and esteem, it may be for one 
century, or it may be for twenty: but, as invariably. Time proves 
each reply to have been a mere approximation to the truth — toler- 
able chiefly on account of the ignorance of those by whom it was 
accepted, and wholly intolerable when tested by the larger knowl- 
edge of their successors. 

In a well-worn metaphor, a parallel is drawn between the life- of 
man and the metamorphosis of the caterpillar into the butterfly; 
but the comparison may be more just as well as more novel, if 
for its former term we take the mental progress of the race. His- 
tory shows that the human mind, fed by constant accessions of 
knowledge, periodically grows too large for its theoretical cover- 
ings, and bursts them asunder to appear in new habiliments, as the 
feeding and growing grub, at intervals, casts its too narrow skin 
and assumes another, itself but temporary. Truly the imago state 
of Man seems to be terribly distant, but every moult is a step 
gained, and of such there have been many. 

Since the revival of learning, whereby the Western races of 
Europe were enabled to enter upon that progress towards true 
knowledge, which was commenced by the philosophers of Greece, 
but was almost arrested in subsequent long ages of intellectual 
stagnation, or, at most, gyration, the human larva has been feeding 
vigorously, and moulting in proportion. A skin of some dimen- 
sion was cast in the 16th century, and another towards the end of 
the 18th, while, within the last fifty years, the extraordinary 
growth of every department of physical science has spread among 
us mental food of so nutritious and stimulating a character that a 
new ecdysis seems imminent. But this is a process not unusually 
accompanied by many throes and some sickness and debility, or, it 
may be, by graver disturbances; so that every good citizen must 
feel bound to facilitate the process, and even if he have nothing 
but a scalpel to work withal, to ease the cracking integument to 
the best of his ability. 

In this duty lies my excuse for the publication of these essays. 
For it will be admitted that some knowledge of man's position 
in the animate world is an indispensable preliminary to the proper 
understanding of his relations to the universe; and this again re- 
solves itself, in the long run, into an inquiry into the nature and 
the closeness of the ties which connect him with those singular 
creatures whose history * has been sketched in the preceding pages. 

The importance of such an inquiry is indeed intuitively mani- 
fest. Brought face to face with these blurred copies of himself, 

* It will be understood that, in the preceding Essay. I have selected 
for notice from the vast mass of papers which have been written npon 
the man-like Apes, only those which seem to me to be of special moment. 



RELATIONS OF MAN TO THE LOWER ANIMALS 47 

the least thoughtful of men is conscious of a certain shock, due 
perhaps, not so much to disgust at the aspect of what looks like an 
insulting caricature, as to the awakening of a sudden and pro- 
found mistrust of time-honoured theories and strongly-rooted 
prejudices regarding his own position in nature, and his relations 
to the under-world of life; while that which remains a dim sus- 
picion for the unthinking, becomes a vast argument, fraught with 
the deepest consequences, for all who are acquainted with the re- 
cent progress of the anatomical and physiological sciences. 

I now propose briefly to unfold that argument, and to set forth, 
in a form intelligible to those who possess no special acquaintance 
with anatomical science, the chief facts upon which all conclusions 
respecting the nature and the extent of the bonds which connect 
man with the brute world must be based : I shall then indicate the 
one immediate conclusion which, in my judgment, is justified by 
those facts, and I shall finally discuss the bearing of that conclu- 
sion upon the hypotheses which have been entertained respecting 
the Origin of Man. 

The facts to which I would first direct the reader's attention, 
though ignored by many of the professed instructors of the public 
mind, are easy of demonstration and are universally agreed to by 
men of science ; while their significance is so great, that whoso has 
duly pondered over them will, I think, find little to startle him in 
the other revelations of Biology. I refer to those facts which have 
been made known by the study of Development. 

It is a truth of very wide, if not of universal, appplication, that 
every living creature commences its existence under a form differ- 
ent from, and simpler than, that which it eventually attains. 

The oak is a more complex thing than the little rudimentary 
plant contained in the acorn ; the caterpillar is more complex than 
the egg; the butterfly than the caterpillar; and each of these be- 
ings, in passing from its rudimentary to its perfect condition, runs 
through a series of changes, the sum of which is called its Develop- 
ment. In the higher animals these changes are extremely com- 
plicated ; but, within the last half century, the labours of such men 
as Von Baer, E-athke, Reichert, Bischoff, and Remak, have almost 
completely unravelled them, so that the successive stages of devel- 
opment which are exhibited by a Dog, for example, are now as well 
known to the embryologist as are the steps of the metamorphosis 
of the silk-worm moth to the school-boy. It will be useful to con- 
sider with attention the nature and the order of the stages of canine 
development, as an example of the process in the higher animals 
generally. 



48 



MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 



The dog, like all animals, save the very lowest (and further in- 
quiries may not improbably remove the apparent exception), com- 
mences its existence as an egg : as a body which is, in every sense, 
as much an egg as that of a hen, but is devoid of that accumulation 
of nutritive matter which confers upon the bird's egg its excep- 
tional size and domestic utility; and wants the shell, which would 
not only be useless to an animal incubated within the body of its 
parent, but would" cut it off from access to the source of that nutri- 
ment which the young creature requires, but which the minute egg 
of the mammal does not contain within itself. 




Fig. 13. — A. Egg of the Dog, with the vitelline membrane burst, so 
as to give exit to the yelk, the germinal vesicle (a), and its included 
spot (&). B. C. D. E. F. Successive changes of the yelk indicated in the 
text. After Bischoff. 

The Dog's egg is, in fact, a little spheroidal bag (Fig. 13), 
formed of a delicate transparent membrane called the vitelline 
membrane^, and about -rioth to rroth of an inch in diameter. It 
contains a mass of viscid nutritive matter — the yelh — within 
which is enclosed a second much more delicate spheroidal bag, 
called the germinal vesicle (a). In this, lastly, lies a more solid 
rounded body, termed the germinal spot (b). 

The egg, or Ovum, is originally formed within a gland, from 
which, in due season, it becomes detached, and passes into the liv- 
ing chamber j&tted for its protection and maintenance during the 
protracted process of gestation. Here, when subjected to the re- 
quired conditions, this minute and apparently insignificant particle 
of living matter becomes animated by a new and mysterious activ- 



RELATIONS OF MAN TO THE LOWER ANIMALS 49 

ity. The germinal vesicle and spot cease to be discernible (their 
precise fate being one of the yet unsolved problems of embryology), 
but the yelk becomes circumferentially indented, as if an invisible 
knife had been drawn round it, and thus appears divided into two 
hemispheres (Fig. 13, C). 

By the repetition of this process in various planes, these hemi- 
spheres become subdivided, so that four segments are produced 
(D) ; and these, in like manner, divide and subdivide again, until 
the whole yelk is converted into a mass of granules, each of which 
consists of a minute spheroid of yelk-substance, inclosing a central 
particle, the so-called nucleus (F). Nature, by this process, has 
attained much the same result as that which a human artificer ar- 
rives at by his operations in a brick-field. She takes the rough 
plastic material* of the yelk and breaks it up into well-shaped toler- 
ably even-sized masses — handy for building up into any part of 
the living edifice. 

Next, the mass of organic bricks, or cells as they are technically 
called, thus formed, acquires an orderly arrangement, becoming 
converted into a hollow spheroid with double walls. Then, upon 
one side of this spheroid, appears a thickening, and, by and bye, 
in the centre of the area of thickening, a straight shallow groove 
(Fig. 14, A) marks the central line of the edifice which is to be 
raised, or, in other words, indicates the position of the middle line 
of the body of the future dog. The substance bounding the groove 
on each side next rises up into a fold, the rudiment of the side 
wall of that long cavity, which will eventually lodge the spinal 
marrow and the brain; and in the floor of this chamber appears 
a solid cellular cord, the so-called notochord. One end of the en- 
closed cavity dilates to form the head (Fig. 14, B), the other re- 
mains narrow, and eventually becomes the tail; the side walls of 
the body are fashioned out of the downward continuation of the 
walls of the groove ; and from them, by and bye, grow out little 
buds which, by degrees, assume the shape of limbs. Watching the 
fashioning process stage by stage, one is forcibly reminded of the 
modeller in clay. Every part, every organ, is at first, as it were 
pinched up rudely, and sketched out in the rough; then shaped 
more accurately; and only, at last, receives the touches which 
stamip its final character. 

Thus, at length, the young puppy assumes such a form as is 
shown in Fig. 14, C. In this condition it has a disproportionately 
large head, as dissimilar to that of a dog as the bud-like limbs are 
unlike his legs. 

The remains of the yelk, which have not yet been applied to the 
nutrition and growth of the young animal, are contained in a sac 



50 



MAN'S PLAGE IN NATURE 



attached to the rudimentary intestine, and termed the yelk sac, or 
umbilical vesicle. Two membranous bags, intended to subserve 
respectively the protection and nutrition of the young creature, 
have been developed from the skin and from the under and hinder 
surface of the body; the former, the so-called amnion^ is a sac 
filled with fluid, which invests the whole body of the embryo, and 
plays the part of a sort of water-bed for it; the other, termed the 
allantois, grows out, loaded with blood-vessels, from the ventral 
region, and eventually applying itself to the walls of the cavity, in 
which the developing organism is contained, enables these vessels 
to become the channel by which the stream of nutriment, required 
to supply the wants of the offspring, is furnished to it by the 
parent. 




Fig. 14. — A. Earliest rudiment of the Dog. B. Rudiment further ad- 
vanced, showing the foundations of the head, tail, and vertebral column. 
C. The very young puppy, with attached ends of the yelk-sac and allan- 
tois, and invested in the amnion. 

The structure which is developed by the inter-lacement of the 
vessels of the offspring with those of the parent, and by means of 
which the former is enabled to receive nourishment and to get rid 
of effete matter, is termed the Placenta. 

It would be tedious, and it is unnecessary for my present pur- 
pose, to trace the process of development further; suffice it to say, 
that, by a long and gradual series of changes, the rudiment here 
depicted and described, becomes a puppy, is born, and then, by 
still slower and less perceptible steps, passes into the adult Dog. 

There is not much apparent resemblance between a barn-door 
Fowl and the Dog who protects the farm-yard. Nevertheless the 



RELATIONS OF MAN TO THE LOWER ANIMALS 51 

student of development finds, not only that the chick commences 
its existence as an egg, primarily identical, in all essential re- 
spects, with that of the Dog, but that the yelk of this egg under- 
goes division* — that the- primitive groove arises, and that the con- 
tiguous parts of the germ are fashioned, by precisely similar 
methods, into a young chick, which, at one stage of its existence, 
is so like the nascent Dog,, that ordinary inspection would hardly 
distinguish the two. 

The history of the development of any other vertebrate animal, 
Lizard, Snake, Frog, or Fish, tells the same story. There is al- 
ways, to begin with, an egg having the same essential structure as 
that of the Dog : — the yelk of that egg always undergoes division, 
or segmentation as it is often called : the ultimate products of that 
segmentation constitute the building materials for the body of 
the young animal ; and this is built up round a primitive groove, in 
the floor of which a notochord is developed. Furthermore, there 
is a period in which the young of all these animals resemble one 
another, not merely in outward form, but in all essentials of struc- 
ture, so closely, that the differences between them are inconsider- 
able, while, in their subsequent course they diverge more and more 
widely from one another. And it is a general law, that, the more 
closely any animals resemble one another in adult structure, the 
longer and the more intimately do their embryos resemble one 
another: so that, for example, the embryos of a Snake and of a 
Lizard remain like one another longer than do those of a Snake 
and of a Bird; and the embryo of a Dog and of a Cat remain like 
one another for a far longer period than do those of a Dog and a 
Bird; or of a Dog and an Opossum; or even than those of a Dog 
and a Monkey. 

Thus the study of development affords a clear test of closeness 
of structural affinity, and one turns with impatience to inquire 
what results are yielded by the study of the development of Man. 
Is he something apart? Does he originate in a totally different 
way from Dog, Bird, Frog, and Fish, thus justifying those who 
assert him to have no place in nature and no real affinity with the 
lower world of animal life? Or does he originate in a similar 
germ, pass through the same slow and gradually progressive modi- 
fications, depend on the same contrivances for protection and nutri- 
tion, and finally enter the world by the help of the same mechan- 
ism? The reply is not doubtful for a moment, and has not been 
doubtful any time these thirty years. Without question, the mode 
of origin and the early stages of the development of man are iden- 
tical with those of the animals immediately below him in the scale : 



52 



MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 



— without a doubt, in these respects, he is far nearer the Apes, than 
the Apes are to the Dog. 

The Human ovum is about Ti3^th of an inch in diameter, and 
might be described in the same terms as that of the Dog, so that 
I need only refer to the figure illustrative (15 A) of its structure. 
It leaves the organ in which it is formed in a similar fashion and 
enters the organic chamber prepared for its reception in the same 
way, the conditions of its development being in all respects the 
same. It has not yet been possible (and only by some rare chance 
can it ever be possible) to study the human ovum in so early a 
developmental stage as that of yelk division, but there is every 
reason to conclude that the changes it undergoes are identical with 
those exhibited by the ova of other vertebrated animals; for the 
formative materials of which the rudimentary human body is com- 
posed, in the earliest conditions in which it has been observed, are 
the same as those of other animals. Some of these earliest stages 




Fig. 15. — A. Human ovum (after Kolliker), a. germinal vesicle. 6. 
germinal spot. B. A very early condition of Man, with yelk-sac, allantois 
and amnion (original.) O. A more advanced stage (after Kolliker), 
compare Fig. 14, G. 

are figured above and, as will be seen, they are strictly comparable 
to the very early states of the Dog; the marvellous correspondence 
between the two which is kept up, even for some time, as develop- 
ment advances, becoming apparent by the simple comparison of the 
figures with those on page 50. 

Indeed, it is very long before the body of the young human 
being can be readily discriminated from that of the young puppy ; 
but, at a tolerably early period, the two become distinguishable by 
the different form of their adjuncts, the yelk-sac and the allantois. 
The former, in the Dog, becomes long and spindle-shaped, while in. 



RELATIONS OF MAN TO THE LOWER ANIMALS 53 

Man it remains spherical : the latter, in the Dog, attains an ex- 
tremely large size, and the vascular processes which are developed 
from it and eventually give rise to the formation of the placenta 
(taking root, as it were, in the parental organism, so as to draw 
nourishment therefrom, as the root of a tree extracts it from the 
soil) are arranged in an encircling zone, while in Man, the allantois 
remains comparatively small, and its vascular rootlets are eventual- 
ly restricted to one disk-like spot. Hence, while the placenta of 
the Dog is like a girdle, that of Man has the cake-like form, indi- 
cated by the name of the organ. 

But, exactly in those respects in which the developing Man dif- 
fers from the Dog, he resembles the ape, which, like man, has a 
spheroidal yelk-sac and a discoidal, sometimes partially lobed, 
placenta. So that it is only quite in the later stages of develop- 
ment that the young human being presents marked differences from 
the young ape, while the latter departs as much from the dog in 
its development, as the man does. 

Startling as the last assertion may appear to be, it is demon- 
strably true, and it alone appears to me sufficient to place beyond 
all doubt the structural unity of man with the rest of the animal 
world, and more particularly and closely with the apes. 

Thus, identical in the physical processes by which he originates — 
identical in the early stages of his formation — identical in the 
mode of his nutrition before and after birth, with the animals 
which lie immediately below him in the scale — Man, if his adult 
and perfect structure be compared with theirs, exhibits, as might 
be expected, a marvellous likeness of organization. He resembles 
them as they resemble one another — he differs from them as they 
differ from one another. — And, though these differences and resem- 
blances cannot be weighed and measured, their value may be 
readily estimated; the scale or standard of judgment, touching 
that value being afforded and expressed by the system of classifica- 
tion of animals now current among zoologists. 

A careful study of the resemblances and differences presented 
by animals has, in fact, led naturalists to arrange them into groups, 
or assemblages, all the members of each group presenting a cer- 
tain amount of definable resemblance, and the number of points 
of similarity being smaller as the group is larger and vice versa. 
Thus, all creatures which agree only in presenting the few distinc- 
tive marks of animality form the Kingdom Animalia. The numer- 
ous animals which agree only in possessing the special characters 
of Vertebrates form one Suh-Tcingdom of this Kingdom. Then the 
Sub-kingdom Yertebrata is subdivided into the five Classes, 



54 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

Fishes, Amphibians, Keptiles, Birds, and Mammals, and these into 
smaller groups called Orders; these into Families and Genera; 
while the last are finally broken up into the smallest assemblages, 
which are distinguished by the possession of constant, not-sexual, 
characters. These ultimate groups are Species. 

Every year tends to bring about a greater uniformity of opinion 
throughout the zoological world as to the limits and characters of 
these groups, great and small. At present, for example, no one has 
the least doubt regarding the characters of the classes Mammalia, 
Aves, or Keptilia; nor does the question arise whether any thor- 
oughly well-known animal should be placed in one class or the 
other. Again, there is a very general agreement respecting the 
characters and limits of the orders of Mammals, and as to the 
animals which are structurally necessitated to take a place in one 
or another order. 

No one doubts, for example, that the Sloth and the Ant-eater, 
the Kangaroo and the Opossum, the Tiger and the Badger, the 
Tapir and the Rhinoceros, are respectively members of the same 
orders. These successive pairs of animals may, and some do, differ 
from one another immensely, in such matters as the proportions 
and structure of their limbs; the number of their dorsal and lum- 
bar vertebrae; the adaptation of their frames to climbing, leaping,, 
or running; the number and form of their teeth; and the char- 
acters of their skulls and of the contained brain. But, with all 
these differences, they are so closely connected in all the more 
important and fundamental characters of their organization, and, 
so distinctly separated by these same characters from other ani- 
mals, that zoologists find it necessary to group them together as 
members of one order. And if any new animal were discovered, 
and were found to present no greater difference from the Kan- 
garoo or from the Opossum, for example, than these animals 
do from one another, the zoologist would not only be logically 
compelled to rank it in the same order with these, but he would 
not think of doing otherwise. 

Bearing this obvious course of zoological reasoning in mind, 
let us endeavour for a moment to disconnect our thinking selves 
from the mask of humanity; let us imagine ourselves scientific 
Saturnians, if you will, fairly acquainted with such animals as 
now inhabit the Earth, and employed in discussing the relations 
they bear to a new and singular "erect and featherless biped," 
which some enterprising traveller, overcoming the difficulties of 
space and gravitation, has brought from that distant' planet for 
our inspection, well preserved, may be, in a cask of rum. We 
should all, at once, agree upon placing him among the mamma- 



RELATIONS OF MAN TO THE LOWER ANIMALS 5^ 

Han vertebrates; and his lower jaw, his molars, and his brain, 
would leave no room for doubting the systematic position of the 
new genus among those mammals, whose young are nourished 
during gestation by means of a placenta, or what are called the 
" placental mammals." 

Further, the most superficial study would at once convince us 
that, among the orders of placental mammals, neither the Whales, 
nor the hoofed creatures, nor the Sloths and Ant-eaters, nor the 
carnivorous Cats, Dogs, and Bears, still less the Rodent Rats and 
Rabbits, or the Insectivorous Moles and Hedgehogs, or the Bats, 
could claim our Homo, as one of themselves. 

There would remain then but one order for comparison, that 
of the Apes (using the word in its broadest sense), and the 
question for discussion would narrow itself to this — is Man 
so different from any of these Apes that he must form an order 
by himself? Or does he differ less from them than they differ 
from one another, and hence must take his place in the same 
order with them? 

Being happily free from all real, or imaginary, personal in- 
terest in the results of the inquiry thus set afoot, we should 
proceed to weigh the arguments on one side and on the other, with 
as much judicial calmness as if the question related to a new 
Opossum. We should endeavour to ascertain, without seeking 
either to magnify or diminish them, all the characters by which 
our new Mammal differed from the Apes; and if we found that 
these were of less structural value than those which distinguish 
certain members of the Ape order from others universally ad- 
mitted to be of the same order, we should undoubtedly place 
the newly discovered tellurian genus with them. 

I now proceed to detail the facts which seem to me to leave us no 
choice but to adopt the last-mentioned course. 

It is quite certain that the Ape which most nearly approaches 
man, in the totality of its organisation, is either the Chim- 
panzee or the Gorilla; and as it makes no practical difference, for 
the purposes of my present argument, which is selected for 
comparison, on the one hand, with Man, and on the other hand, 
with the rest of the Primates,* I shall select the latter (so far 
as its organisation is known) — as a brute now so celebrated in 
prose and verse, that all must have heard of him, and have formed 
some conception of his appearance. I shall take up as many of the 
most important points of difference between man and this re- 

* _We are not at present thoroughly acquainted with the brain of the 
Gorilla, and therefore, in discussing cerebral characters, I shall take 
that of the Chimpanzee as my highest term among the Apes. 



56 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

markable creature, as the space at my disposal will allow me to 
discuss; and the necessities of the argument demand; and I 
shall inquire into the value and magnitude of these differences, 
when placed side by side' with those which separate the Gorilla 
from other animals of the same order. 

In the general proportions of the body and limbs there is 
a remarkable difference between the Gorilla and Man, which 
at once strikes the eye. The Gorilla's brain-case is smaller, 
its trunk larger, its lower limbs shorter, its upper limbs longer 
in proportion than those of Man. 

I find that the vertebral column of a full-grown Gorilla, in 
the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, measures 27 
inches along its anterior curvature, from the upper edge of 
the atlas, or first vertebra of the neck, to the lower extremity 
of the sacrum; that the arm, without the hand, is 3iy2 inches 
long; that the leg, without the foot, is 26^/2 inches long; that 
the hand is 9% inches long; the foot 11 V4 inches long. 

In other words, taking the length of the spinal column as 
100, the arm equals 115, the leg 96, the hand 36, and the foot 41. 

In the skeleton of a male Bosjesman, in the same collection, 
the proportions, by the same measurement, to the spinal column, 
taken as 100, are — the arm 78, the leg 110, the hand 26, and the 
foot 32. In a woman of the same race the arm is 83, and the 
leg 120, the hand and foot remaining the same. In a European 
skeleton I find the arm to be 80, the leg 117, the hand 26, the 
foot 35. 

Thus the leg is not so different as it looks at first sight, in 
its proportion to the spine in the Gorilla and in the Man — being 
very slightly shorter than the spine in the former, and between 
To and 5 longer than the spine in the latter. The foot is 
longer and the hand much longer in the Gorilla; but the great 
difference is caused by the arms, which are very much longer 
than the spine in the Gorilla, very much shorter than the spine 
in the Man. 

The question now arises how are the other Apes related to the 
Gorilla in these respects — taking the length of the spine, meas- 
ured in the same way, at 100. In an adult Chimpanzee, the 
arm is only 96, the leg 90, the hand 43, the foot 39 — so that 
the hand and the leg depart more from the human proportion 
and the arm less, while the foot is about the same as in the 
Gorilla. 

In the Orang, the arms are very much longer than in the Go- 
rilla (122), while the legs are shorter (88) ; the foot is longer 



RELATIONS OF MAN TO THE LOWER ANIMALS 57 

than the hand (52 and 48), and both are much longer in 
proportion to the spine. 

In the other man-like Apes again, the Gibbons, these propor- 
tions are still further altered; the length of the arms being to 
that of the spinal column as 19 to 11; while the legs are also 
a third longer than the spinal column, so as to be longer than in 
Man, instead of shorter. The hand is half as long as the spinal 
column, and the foot, shorter than the hand, is about xxths of 
the length of the spinal column. 

Thus Hylohates is as much longer in the arms than the Gorilla, 
as the Gorilla is longer in the arms than Man ; while, on the other 
hand, it is as much longer in the legs than the Man, as the 
Man is longer in the legs than the Gorilla, so that it contains 
within itself the extremest deviations from the average length 
of both pairs of limbs.* 

The Mandrill presents a middle condition, the arms and legs 
being nearly equal in length, and both being shorter than the 
spinal column; while hand and foot have nearly the same pro- 
portions to one another and to the spine, as in Man. 

In the Spider Monkey (Ateles) the leg is longer than the 
spine, and the arm than the leg; and, finally, in that remark- 
able Lemurine form, the Indri (Lichanotus), the leg is about as 
long as the spinal column, while the arm is not more than 
TF of its length; the hand having rather less and the foot rather 
more, than one -third the length of the spinal column. 

These examples might be greatly multiplied, but they suffice 
to show that, in whatever proportion of its limbs the Gorilla 
differs from Man, the other Apes depart still more widely from 
the Gorilla and that, consequently, such differences of propor- 
tion can have no ordinal value. 

We may next consider the differences presented by the trunk, 
consisting of the vertebral column, or backbone, and the ribs 
and pelvis, or bony hip-basin, which are connected with it, in 
Man and in the Gorilla respectively. 

In Man, in consequence partly of the disposition of the articu- 
lar surfaces of the vertebrae, and largely of the elastic tension 
of some of the fibrous bands, or ligaments, the spinal column, as 
a whole, has an elegant S-like curvature, being convex forwards 
in the neck, concave in the back, convex in the loins, or lumbar 
region, and concave again in the sacral region; an arrange- 
ment which gives much elasticity to the whole backbone, and 

* See the figures of the skeletons of four anthropoid apes and of man, 
drawn to scale, p. 44. 



58 MAN*S PLACE IN NATURE 

diminishes the jar communicated to the spine, and through it 
to the head, by locomotion in the erect position. 

Furthermore, under ordinary circumstances, Man has seven 
vertebrae in his neck, which are called cervical; twelve succeed 
these, bearing ribs and forming the upper part of the back, 
whence they are termed dorsal; five lie in the loins, bearing no 
distinct, or free ribs, and are called lumbar; five, united to- 
gether into a great bone, excavated in front, solidly wedged in 
between the hip bones, to form the back of the pelvis, and 
known by the name of the sacrum, succeed these; and finally, 
three or four little more or less movable bones, so small as to 
be insignificant, constitute the coccyx or rudimentary tail. 

In the Gorilla, the vertebral column is similarly divided into 
cervical, dorsal, lumbar, sacral, and coccygeal vertebrae, and the 
total number of cervical and dorsal vertebrae, taken together, is 
the same as in Man; but the development of a pair of ribs to 
the first lumbar vertebra, which is an exceptional occurrence in 
Man, is the rule in the Gorilla; and hence, as lumbar are dis- 
tinguished from dorsal vertebrae only by the presence or absence 
of free ribs, the seventeen " dorso-lumbar " vertebrae of the Gorilla 
are divided into thirteen dorsal and four lumbar, while in Man 
they are twelve dorsal and five lumbar. 

Not only, however, does Man occasionally possess thirteen pair 
of ribs,* but the Gorilla sometimes has fourteen pairs, while an 
Orang-Utan skeleton in the Museum of the Royal College of 
Surgeons has twelve dorsal and five lumbar vertebrae, as in 
Man. Cuvier notes the same number in a Hylohates. On the 
other hand, among the lower Apes, many possess twelve dorsal 
and six or seven lumbar vertebrae; the Douroucouli has fourteen 
dorsal and eight lumbar, and a Lemur (Stenops tardigradas) has 
fifteen dorsal and nine lumbar vertebrae. 

The vertebral column of the Gorilla, as a whole, differs from 
that of Man in the less marked character of its curves, especially 
in the slighter convexity of the lumbar region. Nevertheless, 
the curves are present, and are quite obvious in young skeletons of 
tlie Gorilla and Chimpanzee which have been prepared without 
removal of the ligaments. In young Orangs similarly preserved 

* " More than once," says Peter Camper, *' have I met with more than 
six lumbar vertebrae in man. . . . Once I found thirteen ribs and four 
himbar vertebrae." Fallopius noted thirteen pair of ribs and only four 
lumbar vertebrae ; and Eustachius once found eleven dorsal vertebrae and 
six lumbar vertebrae. — CEuvres de Pierre Camper, T. 1. p. 42. As Tyson 
states, his " Pygmie " had thirteen pair of ribs and five lumbar vertelDrae. 
The question of the curves of the spinal column in the Apes requires fur- 
ther investigation. 



RELATIONS OF MAN TO THE LOWER ANIMaV>S 



m 




Gorilla* 




GiUm. 

Fig. 16. — Front and side views of the bony pelvis of Man, the Gorilla 
and Gibbon : reduced from drawings made from nature, of the same ab- 
solute length, by Mr. Waterhouse Hawkins. 

on the other hand, the spinal column is either straight, or even 
concave forwards, throughout the lumbar region. 

Whether we take these characters then, or such nainor ones 
as those which are derivable from the proportional length of the 
spines of the cervical vertebrae, and the like, there is no doubt 



GO MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

whatsoever as to the marked difference between Man and the Go- 
rilla; but there is as little, that equally marked differences, of the 
very same order, obtain between the Gorilla and the lower Apes. 

The Pelvis, or bony girdle of the hips, of Man is a strikingly 
human part of his organisation; the expanded haunch bones af 
fording support for his viscera during his habitually erect pos- 
ture, and giving space for the attachment of the great muscles 
which enable him to assume and to preserve that attitude. In 
these respects the pelvis of the Gorilla differs very considerably 
from his (Fig. 16). But go no lower than the Gibbon, and see 
how vastly more he differs from the Gorilla than the latter does 
from Man, even in this structure. Look at the flat, narrow haunch 
bones — the long and narrow passage — the coarse, outwardly 
curved, ischiatic prominences on which the Gibbon habitually 
rests, and which are coated by the so-called " callosities," dense 
patches of skin, wholly absent in the Gorilla, in the Chimpanzee, 
and in the Orang, as in Man! 

In the lower Monkeys and in the Lemurs the difference becomes 
more striking still, the pelvis acquiring an altogether quadrupedal 
character. 

But now let us turn to a nobler and more characteristic organ 
— that by which the human frame seems to be, and indeed is, so 
strongly distinguished from all others, — I mean the skull. The 
differences between a Gorilla's skull and a Man's are truly im- 
mense (Fig. 17). In the former, the face, formed largely by the 
massive jaw-bones, predominates over the brain-case, or cranium 
proper: in the latter, the proportions of the two are reversed. 
In the Man, the occipital foramen, through which passes the 
great nervous cord connecting the brain with the nerves of the 
body, is placed just behind the centre of the base of the skull, 
which thus becomes evenly balanced in the erect posture; in the 
Gorilla, it lies in the posterior third of that base. In the Man, 
the surface of the skull is comparatively smooth, and the supra- 
ciliary ridges or brow prominences usually project but little — 
while, in the Gorilla, vast crests are developed upon the skull, and 
the brow ridges overhang the cavernous orbits, like great pent- 
houses. 

Sections of the skulls, however, show that some of the apparent 
defects of the Gorilla's cranium arise, in fact, not so much from 
deficiency of brain-case as from excessive development of the parts 
of the face. The cranial cavity is not ill-shaped, and the forehead 
is not truly flattened or very retreating, its really well-formed 
curve being simply disguised by the mass of bone which is built up 
against it (Fig. 17). 



RELATIONS OF MAN TO THE LOWER ANIMALS 61 

But the roofs of the orbits rise more obliquely into the cranial 
cavity, thus diminishing the space for the lower part of the anterior 
lobes of the brain, and the absolute capacity of the cranium is far 
less than that of Man. So far as I am aware, no human cranium 
belonging to an adult man has yet been observed with a less cubical 
capacity than 62 cubic inches, the smallest cranium observed in 
any race of men by Morton, measuring 63 cubic inches; while, on 
the other hand, the most capacious Gorilla skull yet measured has 
a content of not more than 34% cubic inches. Let us assume, 
for simplicity's sake, that the lowest Man's skull has twice the 
capacity of that of the highest Gorilla.* 

No doubt, this is a very striking difference, but it loses much of 
its apparent systematic value, when viewed by the light of certain 
other equally indubitable facts respecting cranial capacities. 

The first of these is, that the difference in the volume of the 
cranial cavity of different races of mankind is far greater, abso- 
lutely, than that between the lowest Man and the highest Ape, 
while, relatively, it is about the same. For the largest human 
skull measured by Morton contained 114 cubic inches, that is to 
say, had very nearly double the capacity of the smallest; while its 
absolute preponderance, of 52 cubic inches — is far greater than 
that by which the lowest adult male human cranium surpasses the 
largest of the Gorillas (62 — 341/2 = 271/2). Secondly, the adult 
crania of Gorillas which have as yet been measured differ among 

* It has been affirmed that Hindoo crania sometimes contain as little 
as 27 ounces of water, which would give a capacity of about 46 cubic 
inches. The minimum capacity which I have assumed above, however, 
is based upon the va jable tables published by Professor R. Wagner in 
his Vorstudien zu einer wissenschaftlichen Morphologie und Physiologie 
des menschlichen GehA''"% As the result of the careful weighing of more 
than 900 hum^an brains, Prof-^^sor Wagner states that one-half weighed 
between 1200 and 1400 gramiwes, and that about two-ninths, consisting 
for the most part of male brains, exceed 1400 grammes. The lightest 
brain of an adult male, with sound mental faculties, recorded by Wag- 
ner, weighed 1020 grammes. As a gramme equals 15.4 grains, and a 
cubic inch of water contains 252.4 grains, this is equivalent to 62 cubic 
inches of water ; so that as brain is heavier than water, we are perfectly 
safe against erring on the side of diminution in taking this as the small- 
est capacity of any adult male human brain. The only adult male brain, 
weighing as little as 970 grammes, is that of an idiot; but the brain 
of an adult woman, against the soundness of whose faculties nothing 
appears, weighed as little as 907 grammes (55.3 cubic inches of water) ; 
and Reid gives an adult female brain of still smaller capacity. The 
heaviest brain (1872 grammes, or about 115 cubic inches) was, however, 
that of a woman: next to it comes the brain of Cuvier (1861 grammes), 
then Byron (1807 grammes), and then an insane person (1783 grammes). 
The lightest adult brain recorded (720 grammes) was that of an idiotic 
female. The brains of five children, four years old, weighed between 
1275 and 992 grammes. So that it may be safely said, that an average 
European child of four years old has a brain twice as large as that of an 
adult Gorilla. 



62 



MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 



attsthaiiIAn; 



CHRYSOTHMX. 



GORILI^A. 




CYNOCEPHAJXS. 



MYCETHa. 



liUMUBt. 



Fig. 17. — Sections of the sknlls of Man and various Apes, drawn so 
as to give the cerebral cavity the same length in each case, thereby dis- 



RELATIONS OF MAN TO THE LOWER ANIMALS 63 

playing the varying proportions of the facial bones. The line & indicates 
the plane of the tentorium, which separates the cerebrum from the cere- 
bellum ; d, the axis of the occipital outlet of the skull. The extent of 
cerebral cavity behind c, which is a perpendicular erected on 6 at the 
point where the tentorium is attached posteriorly, indicates the degree 
to which the cerebrum overlaps the cerebellum — the space occupied by 
which is roughly indicated by the dark shading. In comparing these dia- 
grams, it must be recollected, that figures on so small a scale as these 
simply exemplify the statements in the text, the proof of which is to be 
found in the objects themselves. 

themselves by nearly one-third, the maximum capacity being 34.5 
cubic inches, the minimum 24 cubic inches; and, thirdly, after 
making all due allowance for difference of size, the cranial capaci- 
ties of some of the lower Apes fall nearly as much, relatively, be- 
low those of the higher Apes as the latter fall below Man. 

Thus, even in the important matter of cranial capacity, Men 
differ more widely from one another than they do from the Apes; 
while the lowest Apes differ as much, in proportion, from the high- 
est, as the latter does from Man. The last proposition is still 
better illustrated by the study of the modifications which other 
parts of the cranium undergo in the Simian series. 

It is the large proportional size of the facial bones and the great 
projection of the jaws which confer upon the Gorilla's skull its 
small facial angle and brutal character. 

But if we consider the proportional size of the facial bones to 
the skull proper only, the little Chrysothrix (Fig. 17) differs very 
widely from the Gorilla, and, in the same way, as Man does ; while 
the 'Baboons {Cynoce'pliahis, Fig. 17) exaggerate the gross propor- 
tions of the muzzle of the great Anthropoid, so that its visage 
looks mild and human by comparison with theirs. The difference 
between the Gorilla and the Baboon is even greater than it appears 
at first sight ; for the great facial mass of the former is largely due 
to a downward development of the jaws; an essentially human 
character, superadded upon that almost purely forward, essentially 
brutal development of the same parts which characterises the 
Baboon, and yet more remarkably distinguishes the Lemur. 

Similarly, the occipital foramen of Mycetes (Fig. 17), and still 
more of the Lemurs, is situated completely in the posterior face 
of the skull, or as much further back than that of the Gorilla, as 
that of the Gorilla is further back than that of Man; while, as if 
to render patent the futility of the attempt to base any broad 
classificatory distinction on such a character, the same group of 
Platyrhine, or American monkeys, to which the Mycetes belongs, 
contains the Chrysothrix, whose occipital foramen is situated far 
more forward than in any other ape, and nearly approaches the 
position it holds in Man. 



(;4 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

Again, the Orang's skull is as devoid of excessively developed 
supraciliary prominences as a Man's, though some varieties ex- 
hibit great crests elsewhere (See p. 15) ; and in some of the Cebine 
apes and in the Chrysothrix, the cranium is as smooth and rounded 
as that of Man himself. 

What is true of these leading characteristics of the skull, holds 
good, as may be imagined, of all minor features ; so that for every 
constant difference between the Gorilla's skull and the Man's a 
similar constant difference of the same order (that is to say, con- 
sisting in excess or defect of the same quality) may be found be- 
tween the Gorilla's skull and that of some other ape. So that, 
for the skull, no less than for the skeleton in general, the proposi- 
tion holds good, that the differences between Man and the Gorilla 
are of smaller value than those between the Gorilla and some other 
Apes. 

In connection with the skull, I may speak of the teeth — organs 
which have a peculiar classificatory value, and whose resemblances 
and differences of number, form, and succession, taken as a whole, 
are usually regarded as more trustworthy indicators of affinity 
than any others. 

Man is provided with two sets of teeth — milk teeth and perma- 
nent teeth. The former consist of four incisors, or cutting teeth; 
two canines, or eye-teeth; and four molars or grinders, in each 
jaw, making twenty in all. The latter (Fig. 18) comprises four 
incisors, two canines, four small grinders, called premolars or 
false molars, and six large grinders, or true molars in each jaw — 
making thirty-two in all. The internal incisors are larger than 
the external pair, in the upper jaw, smaller than the external pair, 
in the lower jaw. The crowns of the upper molars exhibit four 
cusps, or blunt-pointed elevations, and a ridge crosses the crown 
obliquely, from the inner anterior cusp to the outer posterior cusp 
(Fig. 18 rn). The anterior lower molars have five cusps, three ex- 
ternal and two internal. The premolars have two cusps, one 
internal and one external, of which the outer is the higher. 

In all these respects the dentition of the Gorilla may be de- 
scribed in the same terms as that of Man; but in other matters 
it exhibits many and important differences (Fig. 18). 

Thus the teeth of man constitute a regular and even series — 
without any break and without any marked projection of one 
tooth above the level of the rest; a peculiarity which, as Cuvier 
long ago showed, is shared by no other mammal save one — as 
different a creature from man as can well be imagined — namely, 
the long extinct Anoplotheriiim. The teeth of the Gorilla, on the 



RELATIONS OF MA*N TO THE LOWER ANIMALS 



65 



contrary, exhibit a break, or interval, termed the diastema, in both 
jaws : in front of the eye-tooth, or between it and the outer incisor, 
in the upper jaw ; behind the eye-tooth, or between it and the front 
false molar, in the lower jaw. Into this break in the series, in 



Gcri Ua 



Cynccephalus. ^'^^ 





m. 






XZ 



Cheiromys, 



Fig. 18. — Lateral views, of the same length, of the upper jaws of 
various Primates, i, incisors ; c, canines ; pm, premolars ; m, molars. A 
line is drawn through the first molar of Man, Oorilla, Cynocephalus, and 
Cebus, and the grinding surface of the second molar is shown in each, 
its anterior and internal angle being just above the m of m^. 



66 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

each jaw, fits the canine of the opposite jaw; the size of the eye- 
tooth in the Gorilla being so great that it projects, like a tusk, 
far beyond the general level of the other teeth. The roots of the 
false molar teeth of the Gorilla, again, are more complex than in 
Man, and the proportional size of the molars is different. The 
Gorilla has the crown of the hindmost grinder of the lower jaw 
more complex, and the order of eruption of the permanent teeth 
is different; the permanent caninea making their appearance be- 
fore the second and third molars in Man, and after them in the 
Gorilla. 

Thus, while the teeth of the Gorilla closely resemble those of 
Man in number, kind, and in the general pattern of their crowns, 
they exhibit marked differences from those of Man in secondary 
respects, such as relative size, number of fangs, and order of 
appearance. 

But, if the teeth of a Gorilla be compared with those of an 
Ape, no further removed from it than a Cynocephalus, or Baboon, 
it will be found that differences and* resemblances of the same order 
are easily observable; but that many of the points in which the 
Gorilla resembles Man are those in which it differs from the 
Baboon; while various respects in which it differs from Man are 
exaggerated in the Cynocephalus. The number and the nature of 
the teeth remain the same in the Baboon as in the Gorilla and in 
Man. But the pattern of the Baboon's upper molars is quite dif- 
ferent from that described above (Fig. 18), the canines are pro- 
portionally longer and more knife-like ; the anterior premolar 
in the lower jaw is specially modified; the posterior molar of the 
lower jaw is still larger and more complex than in the Gorilla. 

Passing from the old-world Apes to those of the new world, we 
meet with a change of much greater importance than any oi 
these. In such a genus as Cehus, for example (Fig. 18), it will be 
found that while in some secondary points, such as the projection 
of the canines and the diastema, the resemblance to the great ape 
is preserved; in other and most important respects, the dentition 
is extremely different. Instead of 20 teeth in the milk set, there 
are 24 : instead of 32 teeth in the permanent set, there are 36, the 
false molars being increased from eight to twelve. And in form, 
the crowns of the molars are very unlike those of the Gorilla, and 
differ far more widely from the human pattern. 

The Marmosets, on the other hand, exhibit the same number of 
teeth as Man and the Gorilla; but, notwithstanding this, their 
dentition is very different, for they have four more false molars, 
like the other American monkeys — but as they have four fewer 
true molars, the total remains the same. And passing from the 



RELATIONS OF MAN TO THE LOWER ANIMALS 67 

American Apes to the Lemurs, the dentition becomes still more 
completely and essentially different from that of the Gorilla. The 
incisors begin to vary both in number and in form. The molars 
acquire, more and more, a many-pointed, insectivorous character, 
and in one Genus, the Aye- Aye (Cheiromys) , the canines dis- 
appear, and the teeth completely simulate those of a Kodent 
(Fig. 18). ^ 

Hence it is obvious that, greatly as the dentition of the highest 
Ape differs from that of Man, it differs far more widely from that 
of the lower and lowest Apes. 

Whatever part of the animal fabric — whatever series of mus- 
cles, whatever viscera might be selected for comparison — the re- 
sult would be the same — the lower Apes and the Gorilla would 
differ more than the Gorilla and the Man. I cannot attempt in 
this place to follow out all these comparisons in detail, and in- 
deed it is unnecessary I should do so. But certain real, or sup- 
posed, structural distinctions between Man and the Apes remain, 
upon which so much stress has been laid, that they require care- 
ful consideration, in order that the true value may be assigned 
to those which are real, and the emptiness of those which are 
fictitious may be exposed. I refer to the characters of the hand, 
the foot, and the brain. 

Man has been defined as the only animal possessed of two hands 
terminating his fore limbs, and of two feet ending his hind limbs, 
while it has been said that all the apes possess four hands; and 
he has been affirmed to differ fundamentally from all the apes in 
the characters of his brain, which alone, it has been strangely as- 
serted and reasserted, exhibits the structures known to anatomists 
as the posterior lobe, the posterior cornu of the lateral ventricle, 
and the hippocampus minor. 

That the former proposition should have gained general accept- 
ance is not surprising — indeed, at first sight, appearances are much 
in its favour : but, as for the second, one can only admire the sur- 
passing courage of its enunciator, seeing that it is an innovation 
which is not only opposed to generally and justly accepted doc- 
trines, but which is directly negatived by the testimony of all 
original inquirers, who have specially investigated the matter: 
and that it neither has been, nor can be, supported by a single 
anatomical preparation. It would, in fact, be unworthy of serious 
refutation, except for the general and natural belief that delib- 
erate and reiterated assertions must have some foundation. 

Before we can discuss the first point with advantage we must 
consider with some attention, and compare together, the structure 



08 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

of the human hand and that of the human foot, so that we may 
have distinct and clear ideas of what constitutes a hand and what 
a foot. 

The external form of the human hand is familiar enough to 
every one. It consists of a stout wrist followed by a broad palm, 
formed of flesh, and tendons, and skin, binding together four 
bones, and dividing into four long and flexible digits, or fingers, 
each of which bears on the back of its last joint a broad and 
flattened nail. The longest cleft between any two digits is rather 
less than half as long as the hand. From the outer side of the 
base of the palm a stout digit goes off, having only two joints 
instead of three; so short, that it only reaches to a little beyond 
the middle of the first joint of the finger next it; and further re- 
markable by its great mobility, in consequence of which it can be 
directed outwards, almost at a right angle to the rest. This digit 
is called the " pollex" or thumb; and, like the others, it bears a 
flat nail upon the back of its terminal joint. In consequence of 
the proportions and mobility of the thumb, it is what is termed 
" opposable " ; in other words, its extremity can, with the greatest 
ease, be brought into contact with the extremities of any of the 
fingers ; a property upon which the possibility of our carrying into 
effect the conceptions of the mind so largely depends. 

The external form of the foot differs widely from that of the 
hand; and yet, when closely compared, the two present some sin- 
gular resemblances. Thus the ankle corresponds in a manner 
with the wrist; the sole with the palm; the toes with the fingers; 
the great toe with the thumb. But the toes, or digits of the foot, 
are far shorter in proportion than the digits of the hand, and are 
less moveable, the want of mobility being most striking in the great 
toe — which, again, is very much larger in proportion to the other 
toes than the thumb to the fingers. In considering this point, 
however, it must not be forgotten that the civilized great toe, con- 
fined and cramped from childhood upwards, is seen to great dis- 
advantage, and that in uncivilized and barefooted people) it retains 
a great amount of mobility, and even some sort of opposability. 
The Chinese boatmen are said to be able to pull an oar; the arti- 
sans of Bengal to weave, and the Carajas to steal fishhooks by its 
help; though, after all, it must be recollected that the structure 
of its joints and the arrangement of its bones, necessarily render 
its prehensile action far less perfect than that of the thumb. 

But to gain a precise conception of the resemblances and dif- 
ferences of the hand and foot, and of the distinctive characters 
of each, we must look below the skin, and compare the bony frame- 
work ajnd its motor apparatus in each (Fig. 19), 



RELATIONS OF MAN TO THE LOWER ANIMALS 



69 



The skeleton of the hand exhibits, in the region which we term 
the wrist, and which is technically called the carpus — two rows 
of closely fitted polygonal bones, four in each row, which are toler- 
ably equal in size. The bones of the first row with the bones of 
the forearm, form the wrist Joint, and are arranged side by side, 
no one greatly exceeding or overlapping the rest. 




Hetncl. 



Fcct» 



Fig. 19. — The skeleton of the Hand and Foot of Man reduced from 
Dr. Carter's drawings in Gray's Anatomy. The hand is drawn to a larg- 
er scale than the foot. The line a a in the hand indicates the boundary 
between the carpus and the metacarpus ; 6 h that between the latter and 
the proximal phalanges ; c c marks the ends of the distal phalanges. The 
line a' a' in the foot indicates the boundary between the tarsus and meta- 
tarsus ; 6' h' marks that between the metatarsus and the proximal pha- 
langes ; and c' c' bounds the ends of the distal phalanges ; ca, the calca- 
neum ; as, the astragalus ; sc, the scaphoid bone in the tarsus. 

Three of the bones of the second row of the carpus bear the 
four long bones which support the palm of the hand. The fifth 
bone of the same character is articulated in a much more free and 



70 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

moveable manner than the others, with its carpal bone, and forms 
the base of the thumb. These are called metacarpal bones, and 
they carry the phalanges or bones of the digits, of which there are 
two in the thumb, and three in each of the fingers. 

The skeleton of the foot is very like that of the hand in some 
respects. Thus there are three phalanges in each of the lesser 
toes, and only two in the great toe, which answers to the thumb. 
There is a long bone, termed metatarsal, answering to the meta- 
carpal, for each digit; and the tarsus which corresponds with the 
carjjus, presents four short polygonal bones in a row, which cor- 
respond very closely with the four carpal bones of the second row 
of the hand. In other respects the foot differs very widely from 
the hand. Thus the great toe is the longest digit but one ; and its 
metatarsal is far less moveably articulated with the tarsus than 
the metacarpal of the thumb with the carpus. But a far more 
important distinction lies in the fact that, instead of four more 
tarsal bones there are only three; and, that these three are not 
arranged side by side, or in one row. One of them, the os calcis or 
heel bone (ca), lies externally, and sends back the large projecting 
heel; another, the astragalus (as), rests on this by one face, and 
by another, forms, with the bones of the leg, the ankle joint; while 
a third face, directed forwards, is separated from the three inner 
tarsal bones of the row next the metatarsus by a bone called the 
scaphoid (so). 

Thus there is a fundamental difference in tlie structure of the 
foot and the hand, observable when the carpus and the tarsus are 
contrasted : and there are differences of degree noticeable when 
the proportions and the mobility of the metacarpals and metatar- 
sals, with their respective digits, are compared together. 

The same two classes of differences become obvious when the 
muscles of the hand are compared with those of the foot. 

Three principal sets of muscles, called " flexors," bend the fingers 
and the thumb, as in clenching the fist, and three sets, — the ex- 
tensors — extend them, as in straightening the fingers. These 
muscles are all " long muscles " ; that is to say, the fleshy part of 
each, lying in and being fixed to the bones of the arm, is, at the 
other end, continued into tendons, or rounded cords, which pass 
into the hand, and are ultimately fixed to the bones which are to 
be moved. Thus, when the fingers are bent, the fieshy parts 
of the flexors of the fingers, placed in the arm, contract, in virtue of 
their peculiar endowment as muscles; and pulling the tendinous 
cords, connecting with their ends, cause them to pull down the 
bones of the fingers towards the palm. 

Not only are the principal flexors of the fingers and of the 



. RELATIONS OF MAN TO THE LOWER ANIMALS 71 

thumb long muscles, but they rem.aiii quite distinct from one 
another throughout their whole length. 

In the foot, there are also three principal flexor muscles of the 
digits or toes, and three principal extensors; but one extensor and 
one flexor are short muscles; that is to say, their fleshy parts are 
not situated in the leg (which corresponds with the arm), but in 
the back and in the sole of the foot — regions which correspond 
with the back and the palm of the hand. 

Again, the tendons of the long flexor of the toes, and of the long 
flexor of the great toe, when they i^ach the sole of the foot, do not 
remain distinct from one another, as the flexors in the palm of the 
hand do, but they become united and commingled in a very curious 
manner — while their united tendons receive an accessory muscle 
connected with the heel-bone. 

But perhaps the most absolutely distinctive character about the 
muscles of the foot is the existence of what is termed the peronceus 
long us J, a long muscle fixed to the outer bone of the leg, and send- 
ing its 'tendon to the outer ankle, behind and below which it passes, 
and then crosses the foot obliquely to be attached to the base of 
the great toe. 'No muscle in the hand exactly corresponds with 
this, which is eminently a foot muscle. 

To resume — the foot of man is distinguished from his hand 
by the following absolute anatomical differences' — 

1. By the arrangement of the tarsal bones. 

2. By having a short flexor and a short extensor muscle cf the 

digits. 

3. By possessing the m.nscle termed peronceus longus. 

And if we desire to ascertain whether the terminal division of 
a limb, in other Primates, is to be called a foot or a hand-, it is by 
the presence or absence of these characters that we must be guided, 
and not by the mere proportions and greater or lesser mobility 
of the great toe, which may vary indefinitely without any funda- 
mental alteration in the structure of the foot. 

Keeping these considerations in mind, let us now turn to the 
limbs of the Gorilla. The terminal division of the fore limb 
presents no difficulty — bone for bone and muscle for muscle, are 
found to be arranged essentially as in man, or with such minor 
differences as are found as varieties in man. The Gorilla's hand 
is clumsier, heavier, and has a thumb somewhat shorter in propor- 
tion than that of man; but no one has ever doubted it being a 
true hand. 

At first sight, the termination of the hind limb of the Gorilla 
looks very hand-like, and as it is still more so in many of the 



72 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

lower apes, it is not wonderful that the appellation " Quadruma- 
na," or four-handed creatures, adopted from the older anatomists* 
by Blumenbach, and unfortunately rendered current by Cuvier, 
should have gained such wide acceptance as a name for the Simian 
group. But the most cursory anatomical investigation at once 
proves that the resemblance of the so-called " hind-hand " to a 
true hand, is only si^in deep, and that, in all essential respects, 
the hind limb of the Gorilla is as truly terminated by a foot as 
that of man. The tarsal bones, in all important circumstances of 
number, disposition, and form, resemble those of man (Fig. 20). 
The metatarsals and digits, on the other hand, are proportionally 
longer and more slender, while the great toe is not only propor- 
tionally shorter and weaker, but its metatarsal bone is united 
by a more movable joint with the tarsus. At the same time, the 
foot is set more obliquely upon the leg than in man. 

As to the muscles, there is a short flexor, a short extensor, and a 
peronceus longus, while the tendons of the long flexors of the 
great toe and of the other toes are united together and with an 
accessory fleshy bundle. 

The hind limb of the Gorilla, therefore, ends in a true foot, 
with a very movable great toe. It is a prehensile foot, indeed, 
but is in no sense a hand; it is a foot which differs from that of 
man not in any fundamental character, but in mere proportions, 
in the degree of mobility, and in the secondary arrangement of 
its parts. I 

It must not be supposed, however, because I speak of these 
differences as not fundamental, that I wish to underrate their 
value. They are important enough in their way, the structure 
of the foot being in strict correlation with that of the rest of the 
organism in each case. Nor can it be doubted that the greater 
division of physiological labour in Man, so that the function of 
support is thrown wholly on the leg and foot, is an advance in 
organization of very great moment to him; but, after all, re- 
garded anatomically, the resemblances between the foot of Man 

* In speaking- of the foot of his " Pygmie," Tyson remarks, p. 13 : — 
" But this part in the formation and in its function too, beinsf 
liker a Hand than a Foot : for the distinguishing sort of animals from 
others, I have thought whether it might not be reckoned and called 
rather Quadru-manus than Quadrupes, i. e. a four-handed rather than a 
four-footed animal." 

As this passage was published in 1699, M. I. G. St. TTilaire is clearly 
in error in ascribing the invention of the term " quadrumanous " to Buf- 
fon, though " bimanous " may belong to him. Tyson uses " Quadru- 
manus " in several places, as at p. 91. ..." Our Pygmie is no Man, 
nor yet the common Ape, but a sort of Animal between both: and thougli 
a Biped, yet of the Quadrum anv s-km(i : though some Men too have been 
observed to use their Feet like Hands as I have seen several." 



RELATIONS OF MAN TO THE LOWER ANIMALS 



73 



£ind the foot of the Gorilla are far more striking and important 
than the differences. 

I have dwelt upon this point at length, because it is one regard- 
ing which much delusion prevails; but I might have passed it 
over without detriment to my argument, which only requires me 
to show that, be the differences between the hand and foot of Man 
and those of the Gorilla what they may — the differences be- 
tween those of the Gorilla, and those of the lower Apes are 
much greater. 

It is not necessary to descend lower in the scale than the Orang 
for conclusive evidence on this head. 



C a . 




Fig, 20. — Foot of Man, Gorilla, and Orang-Utan of the same absolute 
length, to show the differences in proportion of each. Letters as_ in Fig. 
19. Reduced from original drawings by Mr. Waterhouse Hawkins. 

The thumb of the Orang differs more from that of the Gorilla 
than the thumb of the Gorilla differs from that of Man, not only 
by its shortness, but by the absence of any special long flexor 
muscle. The carpus of the Orang, like that of most lower apes, 
contains nine bones, while in the Gorilla, as in Man, and the Chim- 
panzee, there are only eight. 

The Orang's foot (Fig. 20) is still more aberrant; its very long 
toes and short tarsus, short great toe, short and raised heel, great 



74 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

obliquity of articulation with the leg, and absence of a long flexor 
tendon to the great toe, separating it far more widely from the 
foot of the Gorilla than the latter is separated from that of Man. 

But, in some of the lower apes, the hand and foot diverge still 
more from those of the Gorilla, than they do in the Orang. The- 
thumb ceases to be opposable in the American monkeys; is re- 
duced to a mere rudiment covered by the skin in the Spider 
Monkey; and is directed forwards and armed with a curved claw 
like the other digits, in the Marmosets — so that, in all these 
cases, there can be no doubt but that the hand is more different 
from that of the Gorilla than the Gorilla's hand is from Man's. 

And as to the foot, the great toe of the Marmoset is still more 
insignificant in proportion than that of the Orang — while in 
the Lemurs it is very large, and as completely thumb-like and 
opposable as in the Gorilla — but in these animals the second toe 
is often irregularly modified, and in some species the two principal 
bones of the tarsus, the astragalus and the os calcis, are so im- 
mensely elongated as to render the foot, so far, totally unlike 
that of any other mammal. 

So with regard to the muscles. The short flexor of the toes of 
the Gorilla differs from that of Man by the circumstance that one 
slip of the muscle is attached, not to the heel bone, but to the 
tendons of the long flexors. The lower Apes depart from the Go- 
rilla by an exaggeration of the same character, two, three, or more 
slips becoming fixed to the long flexor tendons — or by a multi- 
plication of the slips. — Again, the Gorilla differs slightly from 
Man in the mode of interlacing of the long flexor tendons : and 
the lower apes differ from the Gorilla in exhibiting yet other, 
sometimes very complex, arrangements of the same parts, and 
occasionally in the absence of the accessory fleshy bundle. 

Throughout all these modifications it must be recollected that 
the foot loses no one of its essential characters. Every Monkey 
and Lemur exhibits the characteristic arrangement of tarsal 
bones, possesses a short flexor and short extensor muscle, and a 
peronceus longus. Varied as the proportions and appearance of 
the organ may be, the terminal division of the hind limb remains, 
in plan and principle of construction, a foot, and never, in those 
respects, can be confounded with a hand. 

Hardly any part of the bodily frame, then, could be found 
better calculated to illustrate the truth that the structural differ- 
ences between Man and the highest Ape are of less value than 
those between the highest and the lower Apes, than the hand or 
the foot; and yet, perhaps, there is one organ the study of which 



RELATIONS OF MAN TO THE LOWER ANIMALS 75 

enforces the same conclusion in a still more striking manner — 
and tliat is the Brain. 

But before entering upon the precise question of the amount 
of difference between the Ape's brain and that of Man, it is 
necessary that we should clearly understand what constitutes a 
great, and what a small difference in cerebral structtire; and we 
shall be best enabled to do this by a brief study of the chief 
modifications which the brain exhibits in the series of vertebrate 
animals. 

The brain of a fish is very small, compared with the spinal cord 
into which it is continued, and with the nerves which come off 
from it: of the segments of which it is composed — the olfactory 
lobes, the cerebral hemispheres, and the succeeding divisions — no 
one predominates so much over the rest as to obscure or cover 
them; and the so-called optic lobes are, frequently, the largest 
masses of all. In Reptiles, the mass of the brain, relatively to 
the spinal cord, increases and the cerebral hemispheres begin to 
predominate over the other parts; while in Birds this predom- 
inance is still more marked. The brain of the lowest Mammals, 
such as the duck-billed Platypus and the Opossums and Kangaroos, 
exhibits a still more definite advance in the same direction. The 
cerebral hemispheres have now so much increased in size as, 
more or less, to hide the representatives of the optic lobes, which 
remain comparatively small, so that the brain of a Marsupial is 
extremely different from that of a Bird, Reptile, or Fish. A 
step higher in the scale, among the placental Mammals, the 
structure of the brain requires a vast modification — not that it 
appears much altered externally, in a Bat or in a Babbit, from 
what it is in a Marsupial — nor that the proportions of its parts 
are much changed, but an apparently new structure is found be- 
tween the cerebral hemispheres, connecting them together, at 
what is called the " great commissure " or " corpus callosum." 
The subject requires careful re-investigation, but if the currently 
received statements are correct, the appearance of the " corpus 
callosum " in the placental mammals is the greatest and most sud- 
den modification exhibited by the brain in the whole series of 
vertebrated animals — it is the greatest leap anywhere made by 
Nature in her brain work. For the two halves of the brain being 
once thus knit together, the progress of cerebral complexity is 
traceable through a complete series of steps from the lowest Bo- 
dent, or Insectivore, to Man; and that complexity consists, chiefly,' 
in the disproportionate development of the cerebral hemispheres 
and of the cerebellum, but especially of the former, in respect to 
the other parts of the brain. 



76 MAN'S PLAGE IN NATURE 

In the lower placental mammals, the cerebral hemispheres leave 
the proper upper and posterior face of the cerebellum completely 
visible, when the brain is viewed from above; but, in the higher 
forms, the hinder part of each hemisphere, separated only by the 
tentorium (p. 78) from the anterior face of the cerebellum, in- 
clines backwards and downwards, and grows out, as the so-called 
'' posterior lobe," so as at length to overlap and hide the cere- 
bellum. In all Mammals, each cerebral hemisphere contains a 
cavity which is termed the " ventricle " ; and as this ventricle is 
prolonged, on the one hand, forwards, and on the other down- 
wards, into the substance of the hemisphere, it is said to have two 
horns or " cornua," an " anterior cornu," and a " descending 
cornu." When the posterior lobe is well developed, a third prolon- 
gation of the ventricular cavity extends into it, and is called the 
" posterior cornu." 

In the lower and smaller forms of placental Mammals the sur- 
face of the cerebral hemispheres is either smooth or evenly 
rounded, or eyhibits a very few grooves, which are technically 
termed " sulci," separating ridges or " convolutions " of the sub- 
stance of the brain; and the smaller species of all orders tend to 
a similar smoothness of brain. But, in the higher orders, and 
especially the larger members of these orders, the grooves, or 
sulci, become extremely numerous, and the intermediate convolu- 
tions proportionately more complicated in their meanderings, until, 
in the Elephant, the Porpoise, the higher Apes, and Man, the cere- 
bral surface appears a perfect labyrinth of tortuous foldings. 

Where a posterior lobe exists and presents its customary cavity 
— the posterior cornu — it commonly happens that a particular 
sulcus appears upon the inner and under surface of the lobe, 
parallel with and beneath the floor of the cornu — which is, as it 
were, arched over the roof of the sulcus. It is as if the groove had 
been formed by indenting the floor of the posterior horn from with- 
out with a blunt instrument, so that the floor should rise as a 
convex eminence. 'Now this eminence is what has been termed the 
"Hippocampus minor"; the "Hippocampus major" being a 
larger eminence in the floor of the descending cornu. What may 
be the functional importance of either of these structures we 
know not. 

As if to demonstrate, by a striking example, the impossibility 
of erecting any cerebral barrier between man and the apes, Nature 
has provided us, in the latter animals, with an almost complete 
series of gradations from brains little higher than that of a 
Kodent, to brains little lower than that of Man. And it is a re- 



RELATIONS OF MAN TO THE LOWER ANIMALS 77! 

markable circumstance, that though so far as our present knowl- 
edge extends, there is one true structural break in the series of 
forms of Simian brains, this hiatus does not lie between Man and 
the man-like apes, but between the lower and the lowest Simians; 
or, in other words, between the old and new world apes and 
monkeys, and the Lemurs. Every Lemur which has yet been ex- 
amined, in fact, has its cerebellum partially visible from above, 
and its posterior lobe, with the contained posterior cornu and hip- 
pocampus minor, more or less rudimentary. Every Marmoset, 
American monkey, old world monkey. Baboon, or Man-like ape, 
on the contrary, has its cerebellum entirely hidden, posteriorly, 
by the cerebral lobes, and possesses a large posterior cornu, with, 
a well-developed hippocampus minor. 

In many of these creatures, such as the Saimiri {Chrysothrix) ^ 
the cerebral lobes overlap and extend much further behind the 
cerebellum, in proportion, than they do in man (Eig. 17) — and it 
is quite certain that, in all, the cerebellum is completely covered 
behind, by well developed posterior lobes. The fact can be verified 
by every one who possesses the skull of any old or new world 
monkey. Eor, inasmuch as the brain in all mammals completely 
fills the cranial cavity, it is obvious that a cast of the interior 
of the skull will reproduce the general form of the brain, at any 
rate with such minute and, for the present purpose, utterly un- 
important differences as may result from the absence of the 
enveloping membranes of the brain in the dry skull. But if 
such a cast be made in plaster, and compared with a similar 
cast of the interior of a human skull, it will be obvious that 
the cast of the cerebral chamber, representing the cerebrum of 
the ape, as completely covers over and overlaps the cast of the 
cerebellar chamber, representing the cerebellum, as it does in 
the man (Fig. 21). A careless observer, forgetting that a soft 
structure like the brain loses its proper shape the moment 
it is taken out of the skull, may indeed mistake the uncovered 
condition of the cerebellum of an extracted and distorted brain 
for the natural relations of the parts; but his error must become 
patent even to himself if he try to replace the brain within the 
cranial chamber. To suppose that the cerebellum of an ape is 
naturally uncovered behind is a miscomprehension comparable 
only to that of one who should imagine that a man's lungs always 
occupy but a small portion of the thoracic cavity, because they do 
so when the chest is opened, and their elasticity is no longer neu- 
tralized by the pressure of the air. 

And the error is the less excusable, as it must become! appar- 
ent to every one who examines a section of the skull of any ap^ 



78 



MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 



above a Lemur, without taking the trouble to make a cast of it. 
For there is a very marked groove in every such skull, as in the 
human skull — which indicates the line of attachment of what is 




ChiTnp€tnzee, 



Fig. 21. — Drawings of the internal casts of a Man's and of a Chim- 
panzee's skull, of the same absolute length, and placed in corresponding 
positions, A. Cerebrum ; B. Cerebellum. The former drawing is taken 
from a cast in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, the latter 
from the photograph of the cast of a Chimpanzee's skull, which illus- 
trates the paper by Mr. Marshall " On the Brain of the Chimpanzee " 
in the Natural History Review for July, 1861. The sharper definition 
of the lower edge of the cast of the cerebral chamber in the Chimpanzee 
arises from the circumstance that the tentorium remained in that skull 
and not in the Man's. The cast more accurately represents the brain 
in the Chimpanzee than in the Man ; and the great backward projection 
of the posterior lobes of the cerebrum of the former, beyond the cere- 
bellum, is conspicuous. 



RELATIONS OF MAN TO THE LOWER ANIMALS 79 

termed the tentorium — a sort of parchment-like shelf, or parti- 
tion, which, in the recent state, is interposed between the cere- 
brum and cerebellum, and prevents the former from pressing upon 
the latter. (See Fig. 17.) 

This groove, therefore, indicates the line of separation between 
that part of the cranial cavity which contains the cerebrum, and 
that which contains the cerebellum; and as the brain exactly fills 
the cavity of the skull, it is obvious that the relations of these two 
parts of the cranial cavity at once informs us of the relations of 
their contents. Now in man, in all the old world, and in all the 
new world Simise, with one exception, when the face is directed 
forwards, this line of attachment of the tentorium, or impres- 
sion for the lateral sinus, as it is technically called, is nearly hori- 
zontal, and the cerebral chamber invariably overlaps or projects 
behind the cerebellar chamber. In the Howler Monkey or Mycetes 
(see Fig. 17), the line passes obliquely upwards and backwards, 
and the cerebral overlap is almost nil; while in the Lemurs, as in 
the lower mammals, the line is much more inclined in the same 
direction, and the cerebellar chamber projects considerably beyond 
the cerebral. 

When the gravest errors respecting points so easily settled as 
this question respecting the posterior lobes, can be authoritatively 
propounded, it is no wonder that matters of observation, of no 
very complex character, but still requiring a certain amount of 
care, should have fared worse. Any one who cannot see the pos- 
terior lobe in an ape's brain is not likely to give a very valuable 
opinion respecting the posterior cornu or the hippocampus minor. 
If a man cannot see a church, it is preposterous to take his opinion 
about its altar-piece or painted window — so that I do not feel 
bound to enter upon any discussion of these points, but content 
myself with assuring the reader that the posterior cornu and the 
hippocampus minor, have now been seen — usually, at least as well 
developed as in man, and often better — not only in the Chim- 
panzee, the Orang, and the Gibbon, but in all the genera of the 
old world baboons and monkeys, and in most of the new world 
forms, including the Marmosets. 

In fact, all the abundant and trustworthy evidence (consisting 
of the results of careful investigations directed to the determina- 
tion of these very questions, by skilled anatomists) which we now 
possess, leads to the conviction that, so far from the posterior lobe, 
the posterior cornu, and the hippocampus minor, being structures 
peculiar to and characteristic of man, as they have been over and 
over again asserted to be, even after the publication of the clearest 
demonstration of the reverse, it is precisely these structures which 



80 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

are the most marked cerebral characters common to man with the 
apes. They are among the most distinctly Simian peculiarities 
which the human organism exhibits. 

As to the convolutions the brains of the apes exhibit every stage 
of progress, from the almost smooth brain of the Marmoset, to the 
Orang and the Chimpanzee, which fall but little below Man. And 
it is most remarkable that, as soon as all the principal sulci appear, 
the pattern according to which they are arranged is identical 
with that of the corresponding sulci of man. The surface of the 
brain of a monkey exhibits a sort of skeleton map of man's, and 
in the man-like apes the details become more and more filled in, 
until it is only in minor characters, such as the greater excavation 
of the anterior lobes, the constant presence of fissures usually 
absent in man, and the different disposition and proportions of 
some convolutions, that the Chimpanzee's or the Orang's brain 
can be structurally distinguished from Man's. 

So far as cerebral structure goes, therefore, it is clear that Man 
differs less from the Chimpanzee or the Orang, than these do 
even from the monkeys, and that the difference between the brains 
of the Chimpanzee and of Man is almost insignificant, when 
compared with that between the Chimpanzee brain and that of a 
Lemur. 

It must not be overlooked, however, that there is a very striking 
difference in absolute mass and weight between the lowest human 
brain and that of the highest ape — ' sl difference which is all the 
more remarkable when we recollect that a full-grown Gorilla is 
pretty nearly twice as heavy as a Bosjesman, or as many an 
European woman. It may be doubted whether a healthy human 
adult brain ever w^eighed less than thirty-one or two ounces, or 
that the heaviest Gorilla brain has exceeded twenty ounces. 

This is a very noteworthy circumstance, and doubtless will one 
day help to furnish an explanation of the great gulf which in- 
tervenes between the lowest man and the highest ape in intel- 
lectual power;* but it has little systematic value, for the simple 

* I say help to furnish : for I by no means believe that it was any 
original difference of cerebral quality, or quantity, which caused that 
divergence between the human and the pithecoid stirpes, which has ended 
in the present enormous gulf between them. It is no doubt perfectly 
true, in a certain sense, that all difference of function is a result of 
difference of structure ; or, in other words, of difference in the combina- 
tion of the primary molecular forces of living substance; and, starting 
from this undeniable axiom, objectors occasionally, and with much seem- 
ing plausibility, argue that the vast intellectual chasm between the Ape 
and Man implies a corresponding structural chasm in the organs of the 
intellectual functions ; so that, it is said, the non-discovery of such vast 
differences proves, not that they are absent, but that Science is incompe- 
tent to detect them. A very little consideration, however, will, I think, 
show the fallacy of this reasoning. Its validity hangs upon the assump- 



RELATIONS OF MAN TO THE LOWER ANIMALS 81 

reason that, as may be concluded from wliat has been already said 
respecting cranial capacity, the difference in weight of brain be- 
tween the highest and the lowest men is far greater, both rela- 
tively and absolutely, than that between the lowest man and the 
highest ape. The latter, as has been seen, is represented by, say 
twelve, ounces of cerebral substance absolutely or by 32 :20 rela- 
tively; but as the largest recorded human brain weighed between 
65 and 66 ounces, the former difference is represented by more 
than 33 ounces absolutely, or by 65:32 relatively. Regarded sys- 
tematically, the cerebral differences of man and apes are not of 
more than generic value ; his Family distinction resting chiefly on 
his dentition, his pelvis, and his lower limbs. 

Thus, whatever system of organs be studied, the comparison of 
their modifications in the ape series leads to one and the same 
result — that the structural differences which separate Man from 
the Gorilla and the Chimpanzee are not so great as those which 
separate the Gorilla from the lower apes. 

But in. enunciating this important truth I must guard myself 
against a form of misunderstanding, which is very prevalent. I 
find, in fact, that those who endeavour to teach what nature so 
clearly shows us in this matter, are liable to have their opinions 

tion, that intellectual power depends altogether on the brain — whereas 
the brain is only one condition out of many on which intellectual mani- 
festations depend ; the others being, chiefly, the organs of the senses and 
the motor apparatuses, especially those which are concerned in prehen- 
sion and in the production of articulate speech. 

A man born dumb, notwithstanding his great cerebral mass and his 
inheritance of strong intellectual instincts, would be capable of few 
higher intellectual manifestations than an Orang or a Chimpanzee, if he 
were confined to the society of dumb associates. And yet there might 
not be the slightest discernible difference between his brain and that of 
a highly intelligent and cultivated person. The dumbness might be the 
result of a defective innervation of these parts ; or it might result from 
congenital deafness, caused by some minute defect of the internal ear, 
which only a careful anatomist could discover. 

The argument, that because there is an immense difference between 
a Man's intelligence and an Ape's, therefore, there must be an equally 
immense difference between their brains, appears to me to be about 
as well based as the reasoning by which one should endeavor to prove 
that, because there is a " great gulf " between a watch that keeps accu- 
rate time and another that will not go at all, there is therefore a great 
structural hiatus between the two watches. A hair in the balance- 
wheel, a little rust on a pinion, a bend in a tooth of the escapement, a 
something so slight that only the practised eye of the watchmaker can 
discover it, may be the source of all the difference. 

And believing, as I do, with Cuvier, that the possession of articulate 
speech is the grand distinctive character of man (whether it be abso- 
lutely peculiar to him or not) , I find it very easy to comprehend, that 
some equally inconspicuous structural difference may have been tlie 
primary cause of the immeasurable and practically infinite divergence of 
the Human from the Simian Stirps. 



82 



MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 




^/— C 



Chimpanzee, 



Fig. 22. — Drawing of the cerebral hemispheres of a Man, and of a 
rbimpnnz^e of the same length, in order to show the relative propor- 
tions of Ihe Darts : the former taken from a specimen, which Mr. Flower, 



RELATIONS OF MAN TO THE LOWER ANIMALS 83 

Conservator of the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, was good 
enough to dissect for me; the latter, from the photograph of a similarly 
dissected Chimpanzee's brain, given in Mr. Marshall's pa^er above re- 
ferred to. a, posterior lobe ; &, lateral ventricle ; c, posterior cornu ; x, 
the hippocampus minor. 

misrepresented and their phraseology garbled, until they seem 
to 'say that the structural differences between man and even the 
highest apes are small and insignificant. Let me take this oppor- 
tunity then of distinctly asserting, on the contrary, that they are 
great and significant; that every bone of a Gorilla bears marks 
by which it might be distinguished from the corresponding bone 
of a Man; and that, in the present creation, at any rate, no 
intermediate link bridges over the gap between Homo and 
Troglodytes. 

It would be no less wrong than absurd to deny the existence of 
this chasm; but it is at least equally wrong and absurd to ex- 
aggerate its magnitude and, resting on the admitted fact of its 
existence, to refuse to inquire whether it is wide or narrow. Re- 
member, if you will, that there is no existing link between Man 
and the Gorilla, but do not forget that there is a no less sharp 
line of demarcation, a no less complete absence of any transitional 
form, between the Gorilla and the Orang, or the Orang and the 
Gibbon. I say, not less sharp, though it is somewhat narrower. 
The structural differences between Man and the Man-like apes 
certainly justify our regarding him as constituting a family apart 
from them; though, inasmuch as he differs less from them than 
they do from other families of the same order, there can be no 
justification for placing him in a distinct order. 

And thus the sagacious foresight of the great lawgiver of sys- 
tematic zoology, Linnaeus, becomes justified, and a century of 
anatomical research brings us back to his conclusion, that man 
is a member of the same order (for which the Linnsean term 
Primates ought to be retained) as the Apes and Lemurs. This 
order is now divisible into seven families, of about equal sys- 
tematic value: the first, the Anthropini, contains Man alone; the 
second, the Catarhini, embraces the old world apes ; the third, the 
Platyrhesti, all new world apes, except the Marmosets ; the fourth, 
the Arctopithecini, contains the Marmosets; the fifth, the 
Lemurini, the Lemurs — from which Gheiromys should probably 
be excluded to form a sixth distinct family, the Chetromyini; 
while the seventh, the Galeopithecini, contains only the flying 
Lemur Galeopithecus, — a strange form which almost touches on 
the Bats, as the Cheiromys puts on a Rodent clothing, and the 
Lemurs simulate Insectivora, 



S4 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

Perhaps no order of mammals presents us with so extraordinary 
a series of gradations as this — leading us insensibly from the 
crown and summit of the animal creation down to creatures, 
from which there is but a step, as it seems, to the lowest, smallest, 
and least intelligent of the placental Mammalia. It is as if 
nature herself had foreseen the arrogance of man, and with Ko- 
man severity had provided that his intellect, by its very triumphs, 
should call into prominence the slaves, admonishing the conqueror 
that he is but dust. 

These are the chief facts, this the immediate conclusion from 
them to which I adverted in the commencement of this Essay. 
The facts, I believe, cannot be disputed; and if so, the conclusion 
appears to me to be inevitable. 

But if Man be separated by no greater structural barrier from 
the brutes than they are from one another — then it seems to 
follow that if any process of physical causation can be discovered 
by which the genera and families of ordinary animals have been 
produced, that process of causation is amply sufficient to ac- 
count for the origin of Man. In other words, if it could be shown 
that the Marmosets, for example, have arisen by gradual modi- 
fication of the ordinary Platyrhini, or that both Marmosets and 
Platyrhini are modified ramifications of a primitive stock — then, 
there would be no rational ground for doubting that man might 
have originated, in the one case, by the gradual modification of a 
man-like ape; or, in the other case, as a ramification of the same 
primitive stock as those apes. 

At the present moment, but one such process of physical causa- 
tion has any evidence in its favour; or, in other words, there is 
but one hypothesis regarding the origin of species of animals in 
general which has any scientific existence — that propounded by 
Mr. Darwin. Por Lamarck, sagacious as many of his views were, 
mingled them with so much that was crude and even absurd, as 
to neutralize the benefit which his originality might have effected, 
had he been a more sober and cautious thinker; and though I 
have heard of the announcement of a formula touching "the 
ordained continuous becoming of organic forms," it is obvious that 
it is the first duty of a hypothesis to be intelligible, and that a 
qua-qua-versal proposition of this kind, which may be read back- 
wards, or forwards, or sideways, with exactly the same amount of 
signification, does not really exist, though it may seem to do so. 

At the present moment, therefore, the question of the relation 
of man to the lower animals resolves itself, in the end, into the 
larger question of the tenability, or untenability, of Mr. Darwin's 



RELATIONS OF MAN TO THE LOWER ANIMALS 85 

views. But here we enter upon difficult ground, and it behoves 
us to define our exact position with the greatest care. 

It cannot be doubted, I think, that Mr. Darwin has satisfactorily 
proved that what he terms selection, or selective niodification, 
must occur, and does occur, in nature ; and he has also proved to 
superfluity that such selection is competent to produce forms as 
distinct, structurally, as some genera even are. If the animated 
world presented us with none but structural differences, I should 
have no hesitation in saying that Mr. Darwin had demonstrated 
the existence of a true physical cause, amply competent to ac- 
count for the origin of living species, and of man among the 
rest. 

But, in addition to their structural distinctions, the species of 
animals and plants, or at least a great number of them, exhibit 
physiological characters — what are known as distinct species, 
structurally, being for the most part either altogether incom- 
petent to breed one with another; or if they breed, the resulting 
mule, or hybrid, is unable to perpetuate its race with another 
hybrid of the same kind. 

A true physical cause is, however, admitted to be such only on 
one condition — that it shall account for all the phenomena 
which come within the range of its operation. If it is inconsistent 
with any one phenomenon, it must be rejected; if it fails to ex- 
plain any one phenomenon, it is so far weak, so far to be sus- 
pected; though it may have a perfect right to claim provisional 
acceptance. 

Now, Mr. Darwin's hypothesis is not, so far as I am aware, 
inconsistent with any known biological fact; on the contrary, if 
admitted, the facts of Development, of Comparative Anatomy, of 
Geographical Distribution, and of Palaeontology, become con- 
nected together, and exhibit a meaning such as they never pos- 
sessed before: and I, for one, am fully convinced, that if not 
precisely true, that hypothesis is as near an approximation to the 
truth as, for example, the Copernican hypothesis was to the true 
theory of the planetary motions. 

But, for all this, our acceptance of the Darwinian hypothesis 
must be provisional so long as one link in the chain of evidence 
is wanting; and so long as all the animals and plants certainly 
produced by selective breeding from a common stock are fertile, 
and their progeny are fertile with one another, that link wiU be 
wanting. For, so long, selective breeding vdll not be proved to be 
competent to do all that is required of it to produce natural 
species. 

I have, put this conclusion as strongly as possible before the 



86 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

reader, because the last position in which I wish to find myself 
is that of an advocate for Mr. Darwin's, or any other views; if 
by an advocate is meant one whose business it is to smooth over 
real difficulties, and to persuade where he cannot convince. 

In justice to Mr. Darwin, however, it must be admitted that the 
conditions of fertility and sterility are very ill understood, and 
that every day's advance in knowledge leads us to regard the 
hiatus in his evidence as of less and less importance, when set 
against the multitude of facts which harmonize with, or receive 
an explanation from, his doctrines. 

I adopt Mr. Darwin's hypothesis, therefore, subject to the pro- 
duction of proof that physiological species may be produced by 
selective breeding; just as a physical philosopher may accept the 
undulatory theory of light, subject to the proof of the existence 
of the hypothetical ether; or as the chemist adopts the atomic 
theory, subject to the proof of the existence of atoms; and for 
exactly the same reasons, namely, that it has an immense amount 
of prima facie probability; that it is the only means at present 
within reach of reducing the chaos of observed facts to order; 
and lastly, that it is the most powerful instrument of investiga- 
tion which has been presented to naturalists since the invention 
of the natural system of classification, and the commencement of 
the systematic study of embryology. 

But even leaving Mr. Darwin's view aside, the whole analogy 
of natural operations furnishes so complete and crushing an 
argument against the intervention of any but what are termed 
secondary causes, in the production of all the phenomena of the 
universe; that, in view of the intimate relations between Man and 
the rest of the living world, and between the forces exerted by the 
latter and all other forces, I can see no excuse for doubting that 
all are co-ordinated terms of Nature's, great progression, from the 
formless to the formed — from the inorganic to the organic — 
from blind force to conscious intellect and will. 

Science has fulfilled her function when she has ascertained and 
enunciated truth; and were these pages addressed ta men of 
science only, I should now close this Essay, knowing that my col- 
leagues have learned to respect nothing but evidence, and to 
believe that their highest duty lies in submitting to it, however 
it may jar against their inclinations. 

But, desiring, as I do, to reach the wider circle of the intelli- 
gent public, it would be unworthy cowardice were I to ignore the 
repugnance with which the majority of my readers are likely to 



RELATIONS OF MAN TO THE LOWER ANIMALS 87 

meet the conclusions to which the most careful and conscientious 
study I have been able to give to this matter, has led me. 

On all sides I shall hear the cry — " We are men and women, 
not a mere better sort of apes, a little longer in the leg, more 
compact in the foot, and bigger in brain than your brutal 
Chimpanzees and Gorillas. The power of knowledge — the con- 
science of good and evil — the pitiful tenderness of human affec- 
tions, raise us out of all real fellowship with the brutes, however 
closely they may seem to approximate us." 

To this I can only reply that the exclamation would be most 
just and would have my own entire sympathy, if it were only 
relevant. But, it is not I who seek to base Man's dignity upon his 
great toe, or insinuate that we are lost if an Ape has a hippo- 
campus minor. On the contrary, I have done my best to sweep 
away this vanity. I have endeavoured to show that no absolute 
structural line of demarcation, wider than that between the ani- 
mals which immediately succeed us in the scale, can be drawn 
between the animal world and ourselves; and I may add the ex- 
pression of my belief that the attempt to draw a psychical dis- 
tinction is equally futile, and that even the highest faculties of 
feeling and of intellect begin to germinate in lower forms of life.* 
At the same time, no one is more strongly convinced than I am 
of the vastness of the gulf between civilized man and the brutes; 
or is more certain that whether from them or not, he is assuredly 
not of them. No one is less disposed to think likely of the present 
dignity, or despairingly of the future hopes of the only consciously 
intelligent denizen of this world. 

We are indeed told by those who assume authority in these mat- 
ters, that the two sets of opinions are incompatible, and that the 
belief in the unity of origin of man and brutes involves the 

* It is so rare a pleasure for me to find Professor Owen's opinions in 
entire accordance with my own, that I cannot forbear from quoting a 
paragraph which appeared in his Essay " On the Characters, &c., of the 
Class Mammalia," in the Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean 
Society of London for 1857, but is unaccountably omitted in the "Reade 
Lecture " delivered before the University of Cambridge two years later, 
which is otherwise nearly a reprint of the paper in question. Prof. 
Owen writes : 

" Not being able to appreciate or conceive of the distinction between 
the psychical phenomena of a Chimpanzee and of a Boschisman or of 
an Aztec, with arrested brain growth, as being of a nature so essential 
as to preclude a comparison between them, or as bein,^ other than a 
difference of degree, I cannot shut my eyes to the significance of that 
all-pervading similitude of structure — every tooth, every bone, strictly 
homologous — which makes the determination of the difference between 
Homo and Pithecus the anatomist's difliculty." 

Surely it is a little singular, that the " anatomist," who finds it " difiB- 
cult " to determine " the difference " between Homo and Pithecus, should 
yet range them on anatomical grounds, in distinct sub-classes. 



88 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

brutalization and degradation of the former. But is this really 
so? Could not a sensible child confute by obvious arguments, 
the shallow rhetoricians who would force this conclusion upon us ? 
Is it, indeed, true, that the Poet, or the Philosopher, or the Artist 
whose genius is the glory of his age, is degraded from his high 
estate by the undoubted historical probability, not to say cer- 
tainty, that he is the direct descendant of some naked and bestial 
savage, whose intelligence was just sufficient to make him a little 
more cunning than the Fox, and by so much more dangerous than 
the Tiger ? Or is he bound to howl and grovel on all fours because 
of the wholly unquestionable fact, that he was once an egg, which 
no ordinary power of discrimination could distinguish from that 
of a Dog? Or is the philanthropist, or the saint, to give up his 
endeavours to lead a noble life, because the simplest study of 
man's nature reveals, at its foundations, all the selfish passions, 
and fierce appetites of the merest quadruped? Is mother-love vile 
because a hen shows it, or fidelity base because dogs possess it? 

The common sense of the mass of mankind will answer - these 
questions without a moment's hesitation. Healthy humanity, 
finding itself hard pressed to escape from real sin and degradation, 
will leave the brooding over speculative pollution to the cynics and 
the " righteous overmuch " who, disagreeing in everything else, 
unite in blind insensibility to the nobleness of the visible world, 
and in inability to appreciate the grandeur of the place Man 
occupies therein. 

Nay more, thoughtful men, once escaped from the blinding in- 
fluences of traditional prejudice, will find in the lowly stock 
whence Man has sprung, the best evidence of the splendour of his 
capacities; and will discern in his long progress through the 
Past, a reasonable ground of faith in his attainment of a nobler 
Future. 

They will remember that in comparing civilised man with the 
animal world, one is as the Alpine traveller, who sees the moun- 
tains soaring into the sky and can hardly discern where the deep 
shadowed crags and roseate peaks end, and where the clouds of 
heaven begin. Surely the awestruck voyager may be excused if, 
at first, he refuses to believe the geologist, who tells him that 
these glorious masses are, after all, the hardened mud of primeval 
seas, or the cooled slag of subterranean furnaces — of one sub- 
stance with the dullest clay, but raised by inward forces to that 
place of proud and seemingly inaccessible glory. 

But the geologist is right; and due reflection on his teachings, 
instead of diminishing our reverence and our wonder, adds all 



RELATIONS OF MAN TO OTHE LOWER ANIMALS 89 

the force of intellectual sublimity to the mere aesthetic intuition 
of the uninstructed beholder. 

And after passion and prejudice have died away, the same result 
will attend the teachings of the naturalist respecting that great 
Alps and Andes of the living world — Man. Our reverence for 
the nobility of manhood will not be lessened by the knowledge 
that Man is, in substance and in structure, one with the brutes; 
for, he alone possesses the marvellous endowment of intelligible 
and rational speech, whereby, in the secular period of his existence, 
he has slowly accumulated and organised the experience w^hich is 
almost wholly lost with the cessation of every individual life in 
other animals ; so that, now, he stands raised upon it as on a 
mountain top, far above the level of his humble fellows, and trans- 
figured from his grosser nature by reflecting, here and there, a 
ray from the infinite source of truth. 



90 MAN*S PLACE IN NATURE 



in. 

ON SOME FOSSIL KEMAINS OF MAN. 

1HAVE endeavored to show, in the preceding Essay, that the 
Anthropini, or Man Family, form a very well-defined group 
of the Primates, between which and the immediately follow- 
ing Family, the Catarhini, there is, in the existing world, the 
same entire absence of any transitional form or connecting link, 
as between the Catarhini and Platyrhini. 

It is a commonly received doctrine, however, that the structural 
intervals between the various existing modifications of organic 
beings may be diminished, or even obliterated, if we take into 
account the long and varied succession of animals and plants 
which have preceded these now living and which are known to 
us only by their fossilized remains. How far this doctrine is 
well based, how far, on the other hand, as our knowledge at pres- 
ent stands, it is an overstatement of the real facts of the case, 
and an exaggeration of the conclusions fairly deducible from 
them, are' points of grave importance, but into the discussion of 
which I do not, at present, propose to enter. It is enough that 
such a view of the relations of extinct to living beings has been 
propounded, to lead us to inquire, with anxiety, how far the recent 
discoveries of human remains in a fossil state bear out, or oppose, 
that view. 

I shall confine myself, in discussing this question, to those 
fragmentary Human skulls from the caves of Engis in the valley 
of the Meuse, in Belgium, and of the Neanderthal, near Diisseldorf , 
the geological relations of which have been examined with so much 
care by Sir Charles Lyell ; upon whose high authority I shall take 
it for granted, that the Engis skull belonged to a contemporary 
of the Mammoth (Elephas primigenius) and of the woolly Rhino- 
ceros (Rhinoceros tichorhinus), with the bones of which it was 
found associated; and that the Neanderthal skull is of great, 
though uncertain, antiquity. Whatever be the geological age of 
the latter skull, I conceive it is quite safe (on the ordinary prin- 
ciples of paleontological reasoning) to assume that the former 



FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN 



91 



takes us to, at least, the further side of the vague biological limit, 
which separates the present geological epoch from that which 
immediately preceded it. And there can be no doubt that the 
physical geography of Europe has changed wonderfully, since the 
bones of Men and Mammoths, Hysenas and Rhinoceroses were 
washed pell-mell into the cave of Engis. 

The skull from the cave of Engis was originally discovered by 
Professor Schmerling, and was described by him, together with 




Fig. 23. — The skull from the cave of Engis — viewed from the right 
side. One half the size of nature, a glabella, h occipital protuberance 
(a to 6 glabello-occipital line), c auditory foramen. 

other human remains disinterred at the same time, in his valuable 
work, " Recherches sur les Ossemens fossiles decouverts dans les 
Cavernes de la Province de Liege," published in 1833 (p. 59, et 
seq.), from which the following paragraphs are extracted, the 
precise expressions of the author being, as far as possible, pre- 
served. 



" In the first place, I must remark that these human remains, which 
are in my possession, are characterised, like the thousands of bones which 



^2 MAN'S PLACE IN NAO^URE. 

I have lately been disinterr^'n?, 6y the extent of the decomposition which 
they have undergone, which is precisely the same as that of the extinct 
species : all, with a few exceptions, are broken ; some few are rounded, 
as is frequently found to be the case in fossil remains of other species. 
The fractures are vertical or oblique; none of them are eroded; their 
colour does not differ from that of other fossil bones, and varies from 
whitish yellow to blackish. All are lighter than recent bones, with the 
exception of those which have a calcareous incrustation, and the cavities 
of which are filled with such matter. 

" The cranium which I have caused to be figured, Plate I., Figs. 1, 2, 
is that of an old person. The sutures are beginning to be effaced : all 
the facial bones are wanting, and of the temporal bones only a fragment 
of that of the right side is preserved. 

"The face and the base of the cranium had been detached before the 
skull was deposited in the cave, for we were unable to find those parts, 
though the whole cavern was regularly searched. The cranium was met 
with at a depth of a metre and a half [five feet nearly] hidden under 
an osseous breccia, composed of the remains of small animals, and con- 
taining one rhinoceros' tusk, with several teeth of horses and of rumi- 
nants. This breccia, which has been spoken of above (p. 31), was a 
metre [3% feet about] wide, and rose to the height of a metre and a 
half above the floor of the cavern, to the walls of which it adhered 
strongly. 

" The earth which contained this human skull exhibited no trace of 
disturbance : teeth of rhinoceros, horse, hysena, and bear, surrounded it 
on all sides. 

" The famous Blumenbach * has directed attention to the differences 
presented by the form and the dimensions of human crania of different 
races. This important work would have assisted us greatly, if the face, 
a part essential for the determination of race, with more or less accuracy, 
had not been wanting in our fossil cranium. 

" We are convinced that even if the skull had been complete, it would 
not have been possible to pronounce, with certainty, upon a single speci- 
men ; for individual variations are so numerous in the crania of one and 
the same race, that one cannot, without laying one's self open to large 
chances of error, draw any inference from a single fragment of a cranium 
to the general form of the head to which it belonged. 

" Nevertheless, in order to neglect no point respecting the form of 
this fossil skull, we may observe that, from the first, the elongated and 
narrow form of the forehead attracted our attention. 

" In fact, the slight elevation of the frontal, its narrowness, and the 
form of the orbit, approximate it more nearly to the cranium of an 
Ethiopian than to that of an European : the elongated form and the 
produced occiput are also characters which we believe to be observable 
in our fossil cranium ; but to remove all doubt upon that subject I have 
caused the contours of the cranium of an European and of an Ethiopian 
to be drawn and the foreheads represented. Plate II., Figs. 1 and 2, 

* Decas Collectionis sues craniorum diversarum gentium illustrata. — 
Gottingse, 1790-1820. 



FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN 93 

and, in the same plate, Figs. 3 and 4, will render the differences easily 
distinguishable ; and a single glance at the figures will be more instructive 
than a long and wearisome description. 

" At whatever conclusion we may arrive as to the origin of the man 
from whence this fossil skull proceeded, we may express an opinion 
without exposing ourselves to a fruitless controversy. Each may adopt 
the hypothesis which seems to him most probable : for my own part, I 
hold it to be demonstrated that this cranium has belonged to a person 
of limited intellectual faculties, and we conclude thence that it belonged 
to a man of a low degree of civilization : a deduction which is borne 
out by contrasting the capacity of the frontal with that of the occipital 
region. 

" Another cranium of a young individual was discovered in the floor 
of the cavern beside the tooth of an elephant ; the skull was entire when 
found, but the moment it was lifted it fell into pieces, which I have 
not, as yet, been able to put together again. But I have represented the 
bones of the upper jaw, Plate I., Fig. 5. The state of the alveoli and 
the teeth, shows that the molars had not yet pierced the gum. Detached 
milk molars and some fragments of a human skull, proceed from this 
same place. The figure 3 represents a human superior incisor tooth, 
the size of which is truly remarkable.* 

" Figure 4 is a fragment of a superior maxillary bone, the molar 
teeth of which are worn down to the roots. 

" I possess two vertebrae, a first and last dorsal. 

"A clavicle of the left side (see Plate III., Fig. 1); although it 
belonged to a young individual, this bone shows that he must have been 
of great stature.f 

" Two fragments of the radius, badly preserved, do not indicate that 
the height of the man, to whom they belonged, exceeded five feet 

and a half. 

" As to the remains of the upper extremities, those which are in my 
possession consist merely of a fragment of an ulna and of a radius ( Plate 
III., Figs. 5 and 6). 

" Figure 2, Plate IV., represents a metacarpal bone, contained in the 
breccia, of which we have spoken ; it was found in the lower part above 
the cranium ; add to this some metacarpal bones, found at very different 
distances, half-a-dozen metatarsals, three phalanges of the hand, and 
one of the foot. 

" This is a brief enumeration of the remains of human bones collected 
in the cavern of Engis, which has preserved for us the remains of three 
individuals, surrounded by those of the Elephant, of the Rhinoceros, and 
of Carnivora of species unknown in the present creation." 



* In a subsequent passage, Schmerling remarks upon the occurrence 
of an incisor tooth " of enormous size " from the caverns of Engihoul. 
The tooth figured is somewhat long, but its dimensions do not appear to 
me to be otherwise remarkable. 

t The figure of this clavicle measures 5 inches from end to end in a 
-straight line — so that the bone is rather a small than a large one. 



94 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

From the cave of Engihoul, opposite that of Engis, on the right 
bank of the Meuse, Schmerling obtained the remains of three 
other individuals of Man, among which were only two fragments 
of parietal bones, but many bones of the extremities. In one 
case, a broken fragment of an ulna was soldered to a like fragment 
of a radius by stalagmite, a condition frequently observed among 
the bones of the Cave Bear (JJrsus spelceus), found in the Belgian 
caverns. 

It was in the cavern of Engis that Professor Schmerling found, 
incrusted with stalagmite and joined to a stone, the pointed bone 
implement, which he has figured in Eig. 7 of his Plate XXXYL, 
and worked flints were found by him in all those Belgian caves, 
which contained an abundance of fossil bones. 

A short letter from M. Geoffroy St. Hilaire, published in the 
" Comptes Kendus " of the Academy of Sciences of Paris, for 
July 2nd, 1838, speaks of a visit (and apparently a very hasty 
one) paid to the collection of Professor " Schermidt " (which is 
presumably a misprint for Schmerling) at Liege. The writer 
briefly criticises the drawings which illustrate Schmerling's work, 
and affirms that the " human cranium is a little longer than it is 
represented" in Schmerling's figure. The only other remark 
worth quoting is this : — 

" The aspect of the human bones differs little from that of the cave 
bones, with which we are familiar, and of which there is a considerable 
collection in the same place. With respect to their special forms, com- 
pared with those of the varieties of recent hnman crania, few certain 
conclusions can be put forward ; for much greater differences exist be- 
tween the different specimens of well-characterized varieties, than be- 
tween the fossil cranium of Liege and that of one of those varieties 
selected as a term of comparison." 

Geoifroy St. Hilaire's remarks are^ it will be observed, little but 
an echo of the philosophic doubts of the describer and discoverer 
of the remains. As to the critique upon Schmerling's figures, I 
find that the side view given by the latter is really about fVths 
of an inch shorter than the original, and that the front view is 
diminished to about the same extent. Otherwise the representa- 
tion is not, in any way, inaccurate, but corresponds very well with 
the cast which is in my possession. 

A piece of the occipital bone, which Schmerling seems to have 
missed, has since been fitted on to the rest of the cranium by an 
accomplished anatomist. Dr. Spring of Liege, under whose direc- 
tion an excellent plaster cast was made for Sir Charles Lyell. It 
is upon and from a duplicate of that cast that my own observa- 



FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN 



95 




Fig. 24. — The Engis skull viewed from above (A) and in front (B). 

tions and the accompanying figures, tlie outlines of which are 
copied from very accurate Camera lucida drawings, by my friend 
Mr. Busk, reduced to one-half of the natural size, are made. 



96 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

As Professor Schmerling observes, the base of tlie skull is de- 
stroyed, and the facial bones are entirely absent; but the roof of 
the cranium, consisting of the frontal, parietal, and the greater 
part of the 'occipital bones, as far as the middle of the occipital 
foramen, is entire, or nearly so. The left temporal bone is want- 
ing. Of the right temporal, the parts in the immediate neighbour- 
hood of the auditory foramen, the mastoid process, and a con- 
siderable portion of the squamous element of the temporal are 
well preserved (Fig, 23). 

The lines of fracture which remain between the coadjusted 
pieces of the skull, and are faithfully displayed in Schmerling's 
figure, are readily traceable in the cast. The sutures are also dis- 
cernible, but the complex disposition of their serrations, shown 
in the figure, is not obvious in the cast. Though the ridges 
which give attachment to muscles are not excessively prominent, 
they are well marked, and taken together with the apparently well 
developed frontal sinuses, and the condition of the sutures, leave 
no doubt on my mind that the skull is that of an adult, if not 
middle-aged man. 

The extreme length of the skull is 7.7 inches. Its extreme 
breadth, which corresponds very nearly with the interval between 
the parietal protuberances, is not more than 5.4 inches. The 
proportion of the length to the breadth is therefore very nearly 
as 100 to 70. If a line be drawn from the point at which the 
brow curves in towards the root of the nose, and which is called 
the "glabella" (a), (Fig. 23), to the occipital protuberance (Z)), 
and the distance to the highest point of the arch of the skull 
be measured perpendicularly from this line, it will be found to be 
4.75 inches. Viewed from above, Fig. 24, A, the forehead pre- 
sents an evenly rounded curve, and passes into the contour of the 
sides and back of the skull, which describes a tolerably regular 
elliptical curve. 

The front view (Fig 24, B) shows that the roof of the skull 
was very regularly and elegantly arched in the transverse direction, 
and that the transverse diameter was a little less below the pari- 
etal protuberances, than above them. The forehead cannot be 
called narrow in relation to the rest of the skull, nor can it be 
called a retreating forehead; on the contrary, the antero-posterior 
contour of the skull is well arched, so that the distance along 
that contour, from the nasal depression to the occipital protuber- 
ance, measures about 13.75 inches. The transverse arc of the 
skull, measured from one auditory foramen to the other, across 
the middle of the sagittal suture, is about 13 inches. The sagittal 
suture itself is 5.5 inches long. 



FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN. 97 

The siipraciliary prominences or brow-ridges (on each side 
of a. Fig. 23) are well, but not excessively, developed, and are 
separated by a median depression. Their principal elevation is 
disposed so obliquely that I judge them to be due to large frontal 
sinuses. 

If a line joining the glabella and the occipital protuberance 
{a, h. Fig. 23) be made horizontal, no part of the occipital region 
projects more than xV th of an inch behind the posterior extremity 
of that line, and the upper edge of the auditory foramen (c) 
is almost in contact with a line drawn parallel with this upon the 
outer surface of the skull. 

A transverse line drawn from one auditory foramen to the other 
traverses, as usual, the fore part of the occipital foramen. The 
capacity of the interior of this fragmentary skull has not been 
ascertained. 

The history of the Human remains from the cavern in the 
Neanderthal may best be given in the words of their original de- 
scriber. Dr. Schaaffliausen,* as translated by Mr. Busk. 

" In the early part of the year 1857, a human skeleton was discovered 
in a limestone cave in the Neanderthal, near Hochdal, between Diisseldorf 
and Elberfeld. Of this, however, I was unable to procure more than 
a plaster cast of the cranium, taken at Elberfeld, from which I drew up 
an account of its remarkable conformation, which was, in the first in- 
stance, read on the 4th of February, 1857, at the meeting of the Lower 
Rhine Medical and Natural History Society, at Bonn.f Subsequently 
Dr. Fuhlrott, to whom science is indebted for the preservation of these 
bones, which were not at first regarded as human,, and into whose pos- 
session they afterwards came, brought the cranium from Elberfeld to 
Bonn, and entrusted it to me for more accurate anatomical examination. 
At the General Meeting of the Natural History Society of Prussian 
Rhineland and Westphalia, at Bonn, on the 2nd of June 1857,$ Dr. 
Fuhlrott himself gave a full account of the locality, and of the circum- 
stances under which the discovery was made. He was of opinion that the 
bones might be regarded as fossil ; and in coming to this conclusion, he 
laid especial stress upon the existence of dendritic deposits, with which 
their surface was covered, and which were first noticed upon them by 
Professor Mayer. To this communication I appended a brief report on 
the results of my anatomical examination of the bones. The conclusions 

* On the Crania of tlie most Ancient Races of Man. — By Professor 
D. SchaafEhausen, of Bonn. (From Miiller's ArcJiiv., 1858, p. 453.) With 
Remarks, and Original Figures, taken from a Cast of the Neanderthal 
Cranium. By George Busk, F.R.S., &c. Natural History Revieiv, 
April, 1861. 

t Verhandl. d. Naturhist. Vereins der preuss. Rheinlande und West- 
phaJens.. xiv. — Bonn, 1857. 

$ /&. Correspondenzblatt. No. 2. 



98 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

at which I arrived were : 1st. That the extraordinary form of the skull 
was due to a natural conformation hitherto not known to exist, even in 
the most barbarous races. 2nd. That these remarkable human remains 
belonged to a period antecedent to the time of the Celts and Germans, 
and were in all probability derived from one of the wild races of North- 
western Europe, spoken of by Latin writers ; and which were en- 
countered as autochthones by the German immigrants. And 3rdly. That 
it was beyond doubt that these human relics were traceable to a period 
at which the latest animals of the diluvium still existed ; but that no 
proof of this assumption, nor consequently of their so-termed fossil con- 
dition, was afforded by the circumstances under which the bones were 
discovered. 

" As Dr. Fuhlrott has not yet published his description of these cir- 
cumstances, I borrow the following account of them from one of his 
letters. 'A small cave or grotto, high enough to admit a man, and 
about 15 feet deep from the entrance, which is 7 or 8 feet wide, exists 
in the southern wall of the gorge of the Neanderthal, as it is termed, 
at a distance of about 100 feet from the Diissel, and about 60 feet above 
the bottom of the valley. In its earlier and uninjured condition, this 
cavern opened upon a narrow plateau lying in front of it, and from 
which the rocky wall descended almost perpendicularly into the river. 
It could be reached, though with difficulty, from above. The uneven 
floor was covered to a thickness of 4 or 5 feet with a deposit of mud, 
sparingly intermixed with rounded fragments of chert. In the removing 
of this deposit, the bones were discovered. The skull was first noticed, 
placed nearest to the entrance of the cavern; and further in, the other 
bones, lying in the same horizontal plane. Of this I was assured, in 
the most positive terms, by two labourers who were employed to clear out 
the grotto, and who were questioned by me on the spot. At first no idea 
was entertained of the bones being human ; and it was not till several 
weeks after their discovery that they were recognised as such by me, and 
placed in security. 

" ' But, as the importance of the discovery was not at the time per- 
ceived, the labourers were very careless in the collecting, and secured 
chiefly only the larger bones ; and to this circumstance it may be at- 
tributed that fragments merely of the probably perfect skeleton came 
into my possession.' 

" My anatomical examination of these bones afforded the following 
results : — 

" The cranium is of unusual size, and of a long-elliptical form. A 
most remarkable peculiarity is at once obvious in the extraordinary de- 
velopment of the frontal sinuses, owing to which the superciliary ridges, 
which coalesce completely in the middle, are rendered so prominent, that 
the frontal bone exhibits a considerable hollow or depression above, or 
rather behind them, whilst a deep depression is also formed in the situ- 
ation of the root of the nose. The forehead is narrow and low, though 
the middle and hinder portions of the cranial arch are well developed. 
Unfortunately, the fragment of the skull that has been preserved con- 
sists only of the portion situated above the roof of the orbits and the 



FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN 99 

superior occipital ridges, which are greatly developed, and almost con- 
joined so as to form a horizontal eminence. It includes almost the whole 
of the frontal bone, both parietals, a small part of the squamous and 
the upper-third of the occipital. The recently fractured surfaces show 
that the skull was broken at the time of its disinterment. The cavity 
holds 16,876 grains of water, whence its cubical contents may be esti- 
mated at 57.64 inches, or 1033.24 cubic centimetres. In making this 
estimation, the water is supposed to stand on a level with the orbital plate 
of the frontal, with the deepest notch in the squamous margin of the 
parietal, and with the superior semicircular ridges of the occipital. 
Estimated in dried millet-seed, the contents equalled 31 ounces, Prussian 
Apothecaries' weight. The semicircular line indicating the upper boun- 
dary of the attachment of the temporal muscle, though not very strongly 
marked, ascends nevertheless to more than half the height of the parietal 
bone. On the right superciliary ridge is observable an oblique furrow 
or depression, indicative of an injury received during life.* The coronal 
and sagittal sutures are on the exterior nearly closed, and on the inside 
so completely ossified as to have left no traces whatever, whilst the 
lambdoidal remains quite open. The depressions for the Pacchionian 
glands are deep and numerous ; and there is an unusually deep vascular 
groove immediately behind the coronal suture, which, as it terminates in 
a foramen, no doubt transmitted a vena emissaria. The course of the 
frontal suture is indicated externally by a slight ridge ; and where it 
joins the coronal, this ridge rises into a small protuberance. The course 
of the sagittal suture is grooved, and above the angle of the occipital bone 
the parietals are depressed. 

mm.f inches. 

The length of the skull from the nasal process 
of the frontal over the vertex to the superior 
semicircular lines of the occipital measures. 803 (300) =: 12.0". 

Circumference over the orbital ridges and the 

superior semicircular lines of the occipital. 590 (590)=: 23.37" or 23". 

Width of the frontal from the middle of the 
temporal line on one side to the same point 
on the opposite 104 (114) = 4.1"— 4.5". 

Length of the frontal from the nasal process 

to the coronal suture 133 ( 125) =r 5.25"— 5". 

Extreme width of the frontal sinuses 25 (23) = 1.0" — 0.9". 

Vertical height above a line joining the deepest 
notches in the squamous border of the pari- 
etals 70 = 2.75". 

Width of hinder part of skull from one pari- 
etal protuberance to the other 138 (150) = 5.4" — 5.9". 

Distance from the upper angle of the occipital 

to the superior semicircular lines 51 (60) = 1.9" — 2.4". 

* This, Mr. Busk has pointed out, is probably the notch for the fron- 
tal nerve. 

t The numbers in parentheses are those which I should assign to the 
different measures, as taken from the plaster cast. — G. B. 



tofC. 



100 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

Thickness of the bone at the parietal pro- mm. inches, 

tuberance 8. 

• at the angle of the occipital 9. 

■ at the superior semicircular line of the 

occipital 10 = 0.3". 

" Besides the cranium, the following bones have been secured : — 
" 1. Both thigh-bones, perfect. These, like the skull, and all the 
other bones, are characterized by their unusual thickness, and the great 
development of all the elevations and depressions for the attachment of 
muscles. In the Anatomical Museum at Bonn, under the designation of 
* Giant's bones,' are some recent thigh-bones, with which in thickness 
the foregoing pretty nearly correspond, although they are shorter. 

Giant's bones. Fossil bones, 
mm. inches. mm. inches. 

Length 542 = 21.4" ... 438 = 17.4." 

Diameter of head of femur 54 = 2.14" ... 53 = 2.0". 

Diameter of lower articular end, from one 

condyle to the other 89= 3.5"... 87= 3.4". 

Diameter of femur in the middle. ... 33 = 1.2" ... 30 = 1.1". 
" 2. A perfect right humerus, whose size shows that it belongs to the 
thigh-bones. 

mm. inches. 

Length 312 = 12.3'. 

Thickness in the middle 26 = 1.0". 

Diameter of head 49 = 1.9". 

" Also a perfect right radius of corresponding dimensions and the 
upper-third of a right ulna corresponding to the humerus and radius. 

" 3. A left humerus, of which the upper-third is wanting, and which 
is so much slenderer than the right as apparently to belong to a distinct 
individual ; a left ulna, which, though complete, is pathologically de- 
formed, the coronoid process being so much enlarged by bony growth, 
that flexure of the elbow beyond a right angle must have been impossi- 
ble ; the anterior fossa of the humerus for the reception of the coronoid 
process being also filled up with a similar bony growth. At the same 
time, the olecranon is curved strongly downwards. As the bone presents 
no sign of rachitic degeneration, it may be supposed that an injury sus- 
tained during life was the cause of the anchylosis. When the left ulna 
is compared with the right radius, it might at first sight be concluded 
that the bones respectively belonged to different individuals, the ulna 
being more than half an inch too short for articulation with a corre- 
sponding radius. But it is clear that this shortening, as well as the 
attenuation of the left humerus, are both consequent upon the pathologi- 
cal condition above described. 

" 4. A left ilium, almost perfect, and belonging to the femur ; a frag- 
ment of the right scapula; the anterior extremity of a rib of the right 
side ; and the same part of a rib of the left side ; the hinder part of a rib 
of the right side ; and, lastly, two hinder portions and one middle por- 
tion of ribs wiiich, from their unusually rounded shape, and abrupt 
curvature, more resemble the ribs of a carnivorous animal than those of 



FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN 101 

a man. Dr. H. v. Meyer, however, to whose judgment I defer, will not 
venture to declare them to be ribs of any animal ; and it only remains 
to suppose that this abnormal condition has arisen from an unusually 
powerful development of the thoracic muscles. 

" The bones adhere strongly to the tongue, although, as proved by the 
use of hydrochloric acid, the greater part of the cartilage is still re- 
tained in them, which appears, however, to have undergone that trans- 
formation into gelatine which has been observed by v. Bibra in fossil 
bones. The surface of all the bones is in many spots covered with 
minute black specks, which, more especially under a lens, are seen to 
be formed of very delicate dendrites. These deposits, which were first 
observed on the bones by Dr. Mayer, are most distinct on the inner sur- 
face of the cranial bones. They consist of a ferruginous compound, and, 
from their black colour, may be supposed to contain manganese. Similar 
dendritic formations also occur, not unfrequently, on laminated rocks, 
and are usually found in minute fissures and cracks. At the meeting of 
the Lower Rhine Society at Bonn, on the 1st April, 1857, Prof. Mayer 
stated that he had noticed in the museum of Poppelsdorf similar dendritic 
crystallizations on several fossil bones of animals, and particularly on 
those of Ursus spelcBUs, but still more abundantly and beautifully dis- 
played on the fossil bones and teeth of Equus adamiticus, Elephas primi- 
genius, &c., from the caves of Bolve and Sundwig. Faint indications of 
similar dendrites were visible in a Roman skull from Siegburg; whilst 
other ancient skulls, which had lain for centuries in the earth, presented 
no trace of them.* I am indebted to H. v. Meyer for the following re- 
marks on this subject : — 

"'The incipient formation of dendritic deposits, which were formerly 
regarded as a sign of a truly fossil condition, is interesting. It has even 
been supposed that in diluvial deposits the presence of dendrites might 
be regarded as affording a certain mark of distinction between bones 
mixed with the diluvium at a somewhat later period and the true 
diluvial relics, to which alone it was supposed that these deposits were 
confined. But I have long been convinced that neither can the absence of 
dendrites be regarded as indicative of recent age, nor their presence as 
sufficient to establish the great antiquity of the objects upon which they 
occur. I have myself noticed upon paper, which could scarcely be more 
than a year old, dendritic deposits, which could not be distinguished from 
those on fossil bones. Thus I possess a dog's skull from the Roman 
colony of the neighbouring Heddersheim, Castrum Hadrianum, which is 
in no way distinguishable from the fossil bones from the Frankish caves ; 
it presents the same colour, and adheres to the tongue just as they do; 
so that this character also, which, at a former meeting of German, 
naturalists at Bonn, gave rise to amusing scenes between Buckland and 
Schmerling, is no longer of any value. In disputed cases, therefore, the 
condition of the bone can scarcely afford the means for determining with 
certainty whether it be fossil, that is to say, whether it belong to geologi- 
cal antiquity or to the historical period.' 

* Verh. des Naturhist. Vereins in Bonn, xiv. 1857. 



102 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

" As we cannot now look upon the primitive world as representing a 
wholly different condition of things, from which no transition exists to 
the organic life of the present time, the designation of fossil, as applied 
to a hone, has no longer the sense it conveyed in the time of Cuvier. Suf- 
ficient grounds exist for the assumption that man coexisted with the 
animals found in the diluvium; and many a barbarous race may, before 
all historical time, have disappeared, together with the animals of the 
ancient world, whilst the races whose organization is improved have 
continued the genus. The bones which form the subject of this paper 
present characters which, although not decisive as regards a geological 
epoch, are, nevertheless, such as indicate a very high antiquity. It may 
also be remarked that, common as is the occurrence of diluvial animal 
bones in the muddy deposits of caverns, such remains have not hitherto 
been met with in the caves of the Neanderthal ; and that the bones, 
which were covered by a deposit of mud not more than four or five feet 
thick, and without any protective covering of stalagmite, have retained 
the greatest part of their organic substance. 

" These circumstances might be adduced against the probability of a 
geological antiquity. Nor should we be justified in regarding the 
cranial conformation as perhaps representing the most savage primitive 
type of the human race, since crania exist among living savages, which, 
though not exhibiting such a remarkable conformation of the forehead, 
which gives the skull somewhat the aspect of that of the large apes, still 
in other respects, as for instance in the greater depth of the temporal 
fossae, the crest-like, prominent temporal ridges, and a generally less 
capacious cranial cavity, exhibit an equally low stage of development. 
There is no reason for supposing that the deep frontal hollow is due to 
any artificial flattening, such as is practised in various modes by bar- 
barous nations in the Old and New World. The skull is quite sym- 
metrical, and shows no indication of counter-pressure at the occiput, 
whilst, according to Morton, in the Flat-heads of the Columbia, the 
frontal and parietal bones are always unsymmetrical. Its conformation 
exhibits the sparing development of the anterior part of the head which 
has been so often observed in very ancient crania, and affords one of 
the most striking proofs of the influence of culture and civilization on 
the form of the human skull." 

In a subsequent passage, Dr. Schaaffliausen remarks: 

" There is no reason whatever for regarding the unusual development 
of the frontal sinuses in the remarkable skull from the Neanderthal as 
an individual or pathological deformity ; it is unquestionably a typical 
race-character, and is physiologically connected with the uncommon thick- 
ness of the other bones of the skeleton, which exceeds by about one-half 
the usual proportions. This expansion of the frontal sinuses, which are 
appendages of the air-passages, also indicates an unusual force and 
power of endurance in the movements of the body, as may be concluded 
from the size of all the ridges and processes for the attachment of the 
muscles or bones. That this conclusion may be drawn from the existence 



FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN 103 

of large frontal sinuses, and a prominence of the lower frontal region, is 
confirmed in many ways by other observations. By the same characters, 
according to Pallas, the wild horse is distinguished from the domesticated, 
and, according to Cuvier, the fossil cave-bear from every recent species 
of bear, whilst, according to Roulin, the pig, which has become wild in 
America, and regained a resemblance to the wild boar, is thus dis- 
tinguished from the same animal in the domesticated state, as is the 
chamois from the goat ; and, lastly, the bull-dog, which is characterised by 
its large bones and strongly-developed muscles from every other kind of 
dog. The estimation of the facial angle, the determination of which, ac- 
cording to Professor Owen, is also difficult in the great apes, owing to 
the very prominent supra-orbital ridges, in the present case is rendered 
still more difficult from the absence both of the auditory opening and of 
the nasal spine. But if the proper horizontal position of the skull be 
taken from the remaining portions of the orbital plates, and the 
ascending line made to touch the surface of the frontal bone behind the 
prominent supra-orbital ridges, the facial angle is not found to exceed 
56°.* Unfortunately, no portions of the facial bones, whose conforma- 
tion is so decisive as regards the form and expression of the head, have 
been preserved. The cranial capacity, compared with the uncommon 
strength of the corporeal frame, would seem to indicate a small cerebral 
development. The skull, as it is, holds about 31 ounces of millet-seed; 
and as, from the proportionate size of the wanting bones, the whole 
cranial cavity should have about 6 ounces more added, the contents, 
were it perfect, may be taken at 37 ounces. Tiedemann assigns, as the 
cranial contents in the Negro, 40, 88, and 85 ounces. The cranium holds 
rather more than 36 ounces of water which corresponds to a capacity 
of 1038.24 cubic centimetres. Huschke estimates the cranial contents 
of a Negress at 1127 cubic centimetres ; of an old Negro at 1146 cubic 
centimetres. The- capacity of the Malay skulls, estimated by water, 
equalled 36, 33 ounces, whilst in the diminutive Hindoos it falls to as 
little as 27 ounces." 

After comparing tlie !N"eandertlial cranium with many others, 
ancient and modern, Professor Schaaffliausen concludes thus: — • 

" But the human bones and cranium from the Neanderthal exceed all 
the rest in those peculiarities of conformation which lead to the con- 
clusion of their belonging to a barbarous and savage race. Whether 
the cavern in which they were found, unaccompanied with any trace 
of human art, were the place of their interment, or whether, like the 
bones of extinct animals elsewhere, they had been washed into it, they 
may still be regarded as the most ancient memorial of the early inhabi- 
tants of Europe." 

Mr. Busk, the translator of Dr. Schaaffliausen's paper, has en- 
abled us to form a very vivid conception of the degraded char- 

* Estimating the facial angle in the way suggested, on the cast I 
should place it at 64° to 67°.— G. B. 



104 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

acter of the Neanderthal skull, by placing side by side with its 
outline, that of the skull of a Chimpanzee, drawn to the same 
absolute size. 

Some time after the publication of the translation of Professor 
Schaaffhausen's Memoir, I was led to study the cast of the Nean- 
derthal cranium with more attention than I had previously be- 
stowed upon it, in consequence of wishing to supply Sir Charles 
Lyell with a diagram, exhibiting the special peculiarities of this 
skull, as compared with other human skulls. In order to do this 
it was necessary to identify, with precision, those points in 
the skulls compared which corresponded anatomically. Of these 
points, the glabella was obvious enough; but when I had dis- 
tinguished another, defined by the occipital protuberance and 
superior semicircular line, and had placed the outline of the 
Neanderthal skull against that of the Engis skull, in such a 
position that the glabella and occipital protuberance of both were 
intersected by the same straight line, the difference was so vast 
and the flattening of the Neanderthal skull so prodigious (com- 
pare Figs. 23 and 25 A), that I at first imagined I must have 
fallen into some error. And I was the more inclined to suspect 
this, as, in ordinary human skulls, the occipital protuberance and 
superior semicircular curved line on the exterior of the occiput 
correspond pretty closely with the " lateral sinuses " and the line 
of attachment of the tentorium internally. But on the tentorium 
rests, as I have said in the preceding Essay, the posterior lobe 
of the brain; and hence, the occipital protuberance, and the 
curved line in question, indicate, approximately, the lower limits 
of that lobe. Was it possible for a human being to have the brain 
thus flattened and depressed; or, on the other hand, had the 
muscular ridges shifted their position? In order to solve these 
doubts, and to decide the question whether the great supraciliary 
projections did, or did not, sCrise from the development of the 
frontal sinuses, I requested Sir Charles Lyell to be so good as 
to obtain for me from Dr. Euhlrott, the possessor of the skull, an- 
swers to certain queries, and if possible a cast, or at any rate draw- 
ings, or photographs, of the interior of the skull. 

Dr. Euhlrott replied, with a courtesy and readiness for which 
I am infinitely indebted to him, to my inquiries, and further- 
more sent three excellent photographs. One of these gives a side 
view of the skull, and from it Eig. 25 A has been shaded. The 
second (Eig. 26 A) exhibits the wide openings of the frontal 
sinuses upon the inferior surface of the frontal part of the skull, 
into which, Dr. Euhlrott writes, " a probe may be introduced to the 
depth of an inch," and demonstrates the great extension of tl^e 



FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN 



105 



thickened supraciliary ridges beyond the cerebral cavity. The 
third, lastly (Fig. 26 B), exhibits the edge and the interior 
of the posterior, or occipital, part of the skull, and shows very 
clearly the two depressions for the lateral sinuses, sweeping in- 
wards towards the middle line of the roof of the skull, to form the 
longitudinal sinus. It was clear, therefore, that I had not erred 
in my interpretation, and that the posterior lobe of the brain 




Fig. 25. — The skull from the Neanderthal cavern. A, side, B, front, 
and C, top view. One half the natural size. The outlines from camera 

of the Neanderthal man must have been as much flattened as I 
suspected it to be. 

In truth, the Neanderthal cranium has most extraordinary char- 
acters. It has an extreme length of 8 inches, while its breadth 
is only 5.75 inches, or, in other words, its length is to its breadth 



106 



MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 



as 100 : Y2. It is exceedingly depressed, measuring only about 
3.4 inches from the glabello-occipital line to the vertex. The 
longitudinal arc, measured in the same way as in the Engis skull, 
is 12 inches; the transverse arc cannot be exactly ascertained, in 
consequence of the absence of the temporal bones, but was prob- 
ably about the same, and certainly exceeded 10^ inches. The 
horizontal circumference is 23 inches. But this great circum- 
ference arises largely from the vast development of the supra- 
ciliary ridges, though the perimeter of the brain case itself is 




lucida drawings, one half the natural size, by Mr. Busk ; he details from 
the cast and from Dr. Fuhlrott's photographs, a glabella ; & occipital 
protuberance ; d lambdoidal suture. 

not small. The large supraciliary ridges give the forehead a far 
more retreating appearance than its internal contour would bear 
out. 

To an anatomical eye, the posterior part of the skull is even 
more striking than the anterior. The occipital protuberance occu- 
pies the extreme posterior end of the skull, when the glabello-oc- 
cipital line is made horizontal, and so far from any part of the 
occipital region extending beyond it, this region of the skull 
slopes obliquely upward and forward, so that the lambdoidal 
suture is situated well upon the upper surface of the cranium. At 



FOSSIL REMAINS OP MAN 



107 



the same time, notwitlistanding the great length of the skull, 
the sagittal suture is remarkably short (4^ inches), and the squa- 
m.osal suture is very straight. 

In reply to my questions Dr. Fuhlrott writes that the occipital 
bone " is in a state of perfect preservation as far as the upper 
semicircular line, which is a very strong ridge, linear at its extrem- 
ities, but enlarging towards the middle, where it forms two ridges 
(bourrelets), united by a linear continuation, which is slightly 
depressed in the middle." 




A 




Fig. 26. — Drawings from Dr. Fuhlrott's photographs of parts of the 
interior of the Neanderthal cranium. A view of the under and inner 
surface of the frontal region, showing the inferior apertures of the fron- 
tal sinuses (a). B corresponding view of the occipital region of the 
skull, showing the impressions of the lateral sinuses (aa). 

" Below the left ridge the bone exhibits an obliquely inclined 
surface, six lines (French) long, and twelve lines wide." 

This last must be the surface, the contour of which is shown in 
Fig. 25 A, below h. It is particularly interesting, as it suggests 
that, notwithstanding the flattened condition of the occiput, the 
posterior cerebral lobes must have projected considerably beyond 
the cerebellum, and as it constitutes one among several points of 



108 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

similarity between the ISTeaiidertlial cranium and certain Aus- 
tralian skulls. 

Such, are the two best known forms of human cranium, which 
have been found in what may be fairly termed a fossil state. Can 
either be shown to fill up or diminish, to any appreciable extent, 
the structural interval which exists between Man and the man-like 
apes? Or, on the other hand, does neither depart more widely 
from the average structure of the human cranium, than normally 
formed skulls of men are known to do at the present day? 

It is impossible to form any opinion on these questions, with- 
out some preliminary acquaintance with the range of variation 
exhibited by human structure in general, a subject which has 
been but imperfectly studied, while even of what is known, my 
limits will necessarily allow me to give only a very imperfect 
sketch. 

The student of anatomy is perfectly well aware that there 
is not a single organ of the human body the structure of which 
does not vary, to a greater or less extent, in different individuals. 
The skeleton varies in the proportions, and even to a certain 
extent in the connections, of its constituent bones. The muscles 
which move the bones vary largely in their attachments. The 
varieties in the mode of distribution of the arteries are carefully 
classified, on account of the practical importance of a knowledge 
of their shiftings to the surgeon. The characters of the brain 
vary immensely, nothing being less constant than the form and 
size of the cerebral hemispheres, and the richness of the convolu- 
tions upon their surface, while the most changeable structures 
of all in the human brain are exactly those on which the unwise 
attempt has been made to base the distinctive characters of hu- 
manity, viz. the posterior cornu of the lateral ventricle, the 
hippocampus minor, and the degree of projection of the posterior 
lobe beyond the cerebellum. Finally, as all the world knows, the 
hair and skin of human beings may present the most extraordi- 
nary diversities in colour and in texture. 

So far as our present knowledge goes, the majority of the struc- 
tural varieties to which allusion is here made, are individual. The 
ape-like arrangement of certain muscles which is occasionally 
met with* in the white races of mankind, is not known to be 
more common among Negroes or Australians: nor because the 
brain of the Hottentot Venus was found to be smoother, to have 
its convolutions more symmetrically disposed, and to be, so far, 

* See an excellent Essay by Mr. Church on the Myology of the Orang, 
in the Natural History Review for 1861. 



FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN 



109 




Fig. 27. — Side and front views of the round and orthognathous skull of 
a Calmuck after Van Baer. One-third the natural size. 

more ape-like than that of ordinary Europeans, are we justified 
in concluding a like condition of the brain to prevail universally 
among the lower races of mankind;, however probable that con- 
clusion may be. 



110 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

We are, in fact, sadly wanting in information respecting the 
disposition of the soft and destructible organs of every Race of 
Mankind but our own ; and even of the skeleton, our Museums are 
lamentably deficient in every part but the cranium. Skulls 
enough there are, and since the time when Blumenbach and 
Camper first called attention to the marked and singular differ- 
ences which they exhibit, skull collecting and skull measuring has 
been a zealously pursued branch of iSTatural History, and the 
results obtained have been arranged and classified by various writ- 
ers, among whom the late active and able Betzius must always be 
the first named. 

Human skulls have been found to differ from one another, 
not merely in their absolute size and in the absolute capacity of 
the brain case, but in the proportions which the diameters of 
the latter bear to one another; in the relative size of the bones 
of the face (and more particularly of the jaws and teeth) as 
compared with those of the skull; in the degree to which the 
upper jaw (which is of course followed by the lower) is thrown 
backwards and downwards under the fore part of the brain case, or 
forwards and upwards in front of and beyond it. They differ 
further in the relations of the tranverse diameter of the face, 
taken through the cheek bones, to the transverse diameter of the 
skull; in the more rounded or more gable-like form of the roof 
of the skull, and in the degree to which the hinder part of the 
skull is flattened or projects beyond the ridge, into and below 
which the muscles of the neck are inserted. 

In some skulls the brain case may be said to be " round T the 
extreme length not exceeding the extreme breadth by a greater 
proportion than 100 to 80, while the difference may be much less.* 
Men possessing such skulls were termed by Retzius " hracJiy cepha- 
lic/' and the skull of a Calmuck, of which a front and side view 
(reduced outline copies of which are given in Fig. 27) are de- 
picted by Von Baer in his excellent " Crania selecta," affords a 
very admirable sample of that kind of skull. Other skulls, such 
as that of a Negro copied in Fig. 28 from Mr. Busk's " Crania 
tjrpica," have a very different, greatly elongated form, and may 
be termed *' ohlong/' In this skull the extreme length is to the 
extreme breadth as 100 to not more than 67, and the transverse 
diameter of the human skull may fall below even this proportion. 
People having such skulls were called by Retzius '^dolichocepha- 
lic/' 

The most cursory glance at the side views of these two skulls 

* In no normal human skull does the breadth of the brain case exceed 
its length. 



FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN 



111 




Fig. 28. — Oblong and prognathous skull of a Negro; side and front 
views. One-third of the natural size. 

will suffice to prove that they differ, in another respect, to a very 
striking extent. The profile of the face of the Calmuck is almost 
vertical, the facial bones being thrown downwards and tinder the 
fore part of the skull. The profile of the face of the Negro, on 
the other hand, is singularly inclined, the front part of the jaws 



112 



MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE. 



Beaver. 



Lemur, 




Fig. 29. — Longitudinal and vertical sections of the skulls of a Beaver 
(Castor Canadensis) , a Lemur (L. Catta) , and a Baboon (Cynocephalus 
Papio) , at, the basicranial axis; 6 c, the occipital plane; iT, the ten- 
torial plane ; a d, the olfactory plane ; / e, the basifacial axis ; ch a, oc- 
cipital angle ; T ia, tentorial angle ; d ai, olfactory angle ; ef 1), cranio- 
facial angle; g h, extreme length of the cavity which lodges the cerebral 
hemispheres or " cerebral length." The length of the basicranial axis 
as to this length, or, in other words, the proportional length of the 
line g h to that of a & taken as 100, in the three skulls, is as follows : — 
Beaver, 70 to 100 ; Lemur, 119 to 100 ; Baboon, 144 to 100. In an adult 
male Gorilla the cerebral length is as 170 to the basicranial axis taken 
as 100, in the Negro (Pis:. 30) as 236 to 100. In the Constantinople 
skull (Fig. 30) it is as 266 to 100. The difference between the highest 
Ape's skull and the lowpst Man's is therefore very strikingly brought out 
by these measurements. 

In the diagram of the Baboon's skull the dotted lines d^ d^, &c., give the 
angles of the Lemur's and Beaver's skull, as laid down upon the basi- 
cranial axis of the Baboon. The line a 6 has the same length in each 
diagram. 



FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN. 113 

projecting far forward beyond the level of the fore part of the 
skull. In the former case the sknll is said to be " ortliognathous " 
or straight- jawed; in the latter, it is called "prognathous," a term 
which has been rendered, with more force than elegance, by the 
Saxon equivalent, — " snouty." 

Various methods have been devised in order to express with some 
accuracy the degree of prognathism or orthognathism of any given 
skull; most of these methods being essentially modifications of 
that devised by Peter Camper, in order to attain what he called the 
" facial angle." 

But a little consideration will show that any " facial angle '' 
that has been devised, can be competent to express the structural 
modifications involved in prognathism and orthognathism, only in 
a rough and general sort of way. For the lines, the intersection 
of which forms the facial angle, are drawn through points of the 
skull, the position of each of which is modified by a number of 
circumstances, so that the angle obtained is a complex resultant 
of all these circumstances, and is not the expression of any one 
definite organic relation of the parts of the skull. 

I have arrived at the conviction that no comparison of crania 
is worth very much that is not founded upon the establishment of 
a relatively fixed base line, to which the measurements, in all 
cases, must be referred. Nor do I think it is a very difficult 
matter to decide what that base line should be. The parts of 
the skull, like those of the rest of the animal framework, are 
developed in succession : the base of the skull is formed before 
its sides and roof; it is converted into cartilage earlier and more 
completely than the sides and roof: and the cartilaginous base 
ossifies, and becomes soldered into one piece long before the roof. 
I conceive then that the base of the skull may be demonstrated 
developmentally to be its relatively fijxed part, the roof and sides 
being relatively movable. 

The same truth is exemplified by the study of the modifications 
which the skull undergoes in ascending from the lower animals 
up to man. 

In such a mammal as a Beaver (Fig. 29), a line {ah) drawn 
through the bones, termed basioccipital, basisphenoid, and pres- 
phenoid, is very long in proportion to the extreme length of the 
cavity which contains the cerebral hemispheres {g h). The plane 
of the occipital foramen (he) forms a slightly acute angle with 
this " basicranial axis," while the plane of the tentorium (i T) 
is inclined at rather more than 90° to the "basicranial axis"; 
and so is the plane of the perforated plate (ad), by which the 
filaments of the olfactory nerve leave the skull. Again, a line 



114 



MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE. 



drawn tlirough tlie axis of the face, between the hones called eth- 
moid and vomer — the " basif acial axis" (f. e.) forms an exceed- 
ingly obtuse angle, where, when produced, it cuts the " basicranial 



axis. 



If the angle made by the line h c with a h, be called the " occipital 
angle," and the angle made by the line a d with a & be termed the 




Fig. 30. — Sections of orthognathous (light contour) and prognathous 
(dark contour) skulls, one-third of the natural size, a h, Basicranial 
axis ; he, h' c', plane of the occipital foramen ; d d', hinder end of the 
palatine bone ; e e' front end of the upper jaw ; T T', insertion of the 
tentorium. 

" olfactory angle " and that made by * T with a h the " tentorial 
angle " then all these, in the mammal in question, are nearly 
right angles, varying between 80° and 110°. The angle e f h, 
or that made by the cranial with the facial axis, and which may 



FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN. 115 

be termed the " craniofacial angle," is extremely obtuse, amount- 
ing, in the case of the Beaver, to at least 150°. 

But if a series of sections of mammalian skulls, intermediate 
between a Bodent and a Man (Fig. 29), be examined, it will be 
found that in the higher crania the basicranial axis becomes 
shorter relatively to the cerebral length ; that the " olfactory an- 
gle " and " occipital angle " become more obtuse ; and that the 
" craniofacial angle," becomes more acute by the bending down, 
as it were, of the facial axis upon the cranial axis. At the same 
time, the roof of the cranium becomes more and more arched, 
to allow of the increasing height of the cerebral hemispheres, 
which is eminently characteristic of man, as well as of that back- 
ward extension, beyond the cerebellum, which reaches its maximum 
in the South American Monkeys. So that, at last, in the human 
skull (Fig. 30), the cerebral length is between twice and thrice 
as great as the length of the basicranial axis; the olfactory plane 
is 20° or 30° on the under side of that axis; the occipital angle, 
instead of being less than 90°, is as much as 150° or 160° ; the 
cranio-facial angle may be 90° or less, and the vertical height of 
the skull may have a large proportion^to its length. 

It will be obvious, from an inspection of the diagrams, that the 
basicranial axis is, m the ascending series of Mammalia, a rela- 
tively fixed line, on which the bones of the sides and roof of the 
cranial cavity, and of the face, may be said to revolve downwards 
and forwards or backwards, according to their position. The arc 
described by any one bone or plane, however, is not by any means 
always in proportion to the arc described by another. 

Now comes the important question, can we discern, between 
the lowest and the highest forms of the human cranium anything 
answering, in however slight a degree, to this revolution of the 
side and roof bones of the skull upon the basicranial axis observed 
upon so great a scale in the mammalian series? Numerous ob- 
servations lead me to believe that we must answer this question 
in the affirmative. 

The diagrams in Fig. 30 are reduced from very carefully made 
diagrams of sections of four skulls, two round and orthognathous, 
two long and prognathous, taken longitudinally and vertically, 
through the middle. The sectional diagrams have then been super- 
imposed, in such a manner, that the basal axes of the skulls coin- 
cide by their anterior ends, and in their direction. The deviations 
of the rest of the contours (which represent the interior of the 
skulls only) show the differences of the skulls from one another, 
when these axes are regarded as relatively fixed lines. 

The dark contours are those of an Australian and of a Negro 



116 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

skull: the light contours are those of a Tartar skull, in the Mu- 
seum of the Royal College of Surgeons; and of a well developed 
round skull from a cemetery in Constantinople, of uncertain race, 
in my own possession. 

It appears, at once, from these views, that the prognathous 
skulls, so far as their jaws are concerned, do really differ from the 
orthognathous in much the same way as, though to a far less de- 
gree than, the skulls of the lower mammals differ from those of 
Man. Furthermore, the plane of the occipital foramen (h c) 
forms a somewhat smaller angle with the axis in these particular 
prognathous skulls than in the orthognathous ; and the like may he 
slightly true of the perforated plate of the ethmoid — though this 
point is not so clear. But it is singular to remark that, in another 
respect, the prognathous skulls are less ape-like than the or- 
thognathous, the cerebral cavity projecting decidedly more beyond 
the anterior end of the axis in the prognathous, than in the or- 
thognathous, skulls. 

It will be observed that these diagrams reveal an immense range 
of variation in the capacity and relative proportion to the cranial 
axis, of the different regions of the cavity which contains the 
brain, in the different skulls. Nor is the difference in the extent 
to which the cerebral overlaps the cerebellar cavity less singular. 
A round skull (Fig. 30, Const.) may have a greater posterior 
cerebral projection than a long one (Fig. 30, Negro). 

Until human crania have been largely worked out in a manner 
similar to that here suggested — until it shall be an opprobrium to 
an ethnological collection to possess a single skull which is not 
bisected longitudinally — until the angles and measurements here 
mentioned, together with a number of others of which I cannot 
speak in this place, are determined, and tabulated with reference 
to the basicranial axis as unity, for large numbers of skulls of 
the different races of Mankind, I do not think we shall have any 
very safe basis for that ethnological craniology which aspires to 
give the anatomical characters of the crania of the different Races 
of Mankind. 

At present, I believe that the general outlines of what may 
be safely said upon that subject may be summed up in a very 
few words. Draw a line on a globe, from the Gold Coast in 
Western Africa to the steppes of Tartary. At the southern and 
western end of that line there live the most dolichocephalic, prog- 
nathous, curly-haired, dark-skinned of men — the true Negroes. 
At the northern and eastern end of the same line there live the 
most brachycephalic, orthognathous, straight-haired, yellow-skinned 
of men — the Tartars and Calmucks, The two ends of this imag- 



FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN 117 

inary line are indeed, so to speak, ethnological antipodes. A line 
drawn at right angles, or nearly so, to this polar line through 
Europe and Southern Asia to Hindostan, would give us a sort of 
equator, around which round-headed, oval-headed, and oblong- 
headed, prognathous and orthognathous, fair and dark races — ■ 
but none possessing the excessively marked characters of Cahnuck 
or Negro — group themselves. 

It is worthy of notice that the regions of the antipodal races are 
antipodal in climate, the greatest contrast the world affords, per- 
haps, being that between the damp, hot, steaming, alluvial coast 
plains of the West Coast of Africa and the arid, elevated steppes 
and plateaux of Central Asia, bitterly cold in winter, and as far 
from the sea as any part of the world can be. 

From Central Asia eastward to the Pacific Islands and sub- 
continents on the one hand, and to America on the other, brachy- 
cephaly and orthognathism gradually diminish, and are replaced 
by dolichocephaly and prognathism, less, however, on the American 
Continent (throughout the whole length of which a rounded type 
of skull prevails largely, but not exclusively)* than in the Pacific 
region, where, at length, on the Australian Continent and in 
the adjacent islands, the oblong skull, the projecting jaws, and 
the dark skin reappear; with so much departure, in other respects, 
from the Negro type, that ethnologists assign to these people the 
special title of " Negritoes." 

The Australian skull is remarkable for its narrowness and for 
the thickness of its walls, especially in the region of the supra- 
ciliary ridge, which is frequently, though not by any means invari- 
ably, solid throughout, the frontal sinuses remaining undeveloped. 
The nasal depression, again, is extremely su.dden, so that the 
brows overhang and give the countenance a particularly lowering, 
threatening expression. The occipital region of the skull, also, 
not unfrequently becomes less prominent; so that it not only fails 
to project beyond a line drawn perpendicular to the hinder ex- 
tremity of the glabello-occipital line, but even, in some cases, 
begins to shelve away from it, forwards, almost immediately. In 
consequence of this circumstance, the parts of the occipital 'bone 
which lie above and below the tuberosity make a much more acute 
angle with one another than is usual, whereby the hinder part of 
the base of the skull appears obliquely truncated. Many Austra- 
lian skulls have a considerable height, quite equal to that of the 
average of any other race, but there are others in which the 
cranial roof becomes remarkably depressed, the skull, at the same 

* See Dr. D. Wilson's valuable paper " On the supposed prevalence 
of one Cranial Type throughout the American Aborigines." — Canadian 
Journal, Vol. II. 



118 



MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 



time, elongating so much that, probably, its capacity is not di- 
minished. The majority of skulls possessing these- characters, 
which I have seen, are from the neighbourhood of Port Adelaide 
in South Australia, and have been used by the natives as water 
vessels ; to which end the face has been knocked away, and a string 
passed through the vacuity and the occipital foramen, so that 
the skull was suspended by the greater part of its basis. 

Fig. 31 represents the contour of a skull of this kind from 
Western Port, with the jaw attached, and of the Neanderthal 
skull, both reduced to one-third of the size of nature. A small 
additional amount of flattening and lengthening, with a corre- 
sponding increase of the supraciliary ridge, would convert the Aus- 




Fig. 31. — An Australian skull from Western Port, in the Museum 
of the Royal College of Surgeons, with the contour of the Neanderthal 
skull. Both reduced to one-third the natural size. 

tralian brain case into a form identical with, that of the aberrant 
fossil. 



And now, to return to the fossil skulls, and to the rank which 
they occupy among, or beyond, these existing varieties of cranial 
conformation. In the first place, I must remark, that, as Profes- 
sor Schmerling well observed (supra, p. 92) in commenting upon 
the Engis skull, the formation of a safe judgment upon the ques- 
tion is greatly hindered by the absence of the jaws from both the 
crania, so that there is no means of deciding, with certainty, 
whether they were more or less prognathous than the lower exist- 
ing races of mankind. And yet, as we have seen, it is more in 



FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN llO 

this respect than any other, that human skulls vary, towards and 
from, the brutal type — the brain case of an average dolichoce- 
phalic European differing far less from that of a Negro, for ex- 
ample, than his jaws do. In the absence of the jaws, then, any 
judgment on the relations of the fossil skulls to recent Races 
must be accepted with a certain reservation. 

But taking the evidence as it stands, and turning first to the 
Engis skull, I confess I can find no character in the remains of 
that cranium which, if it were a recent skull, would give any trust- 
worthy clue as to the Race to which it might appertain. Its con- 
tours and measurements agree very well with those of some Aus- 
tralian skulls which I have examined — and especially has it a 
tendency towards that occipital flattening, to the great extent of 
which, in some Australian skulls, I have alluded. But all Austra- 
lian skulls do not present this flattening, and the supraciliary ridge 
of the Engis skull is quite unlike that of the typical Australians. 

On the other hand, its measurements agree equally well with 
those of some European skulls. And assuredly, there is no mark 
of degradation about any part of its structure. It is, in fact, 
a fair average human skull, which might have belonged to a 
philosopher, or might have contained the thoughtless brains of a 
savage. 

The case of the Neanderthal skull is very ctiflerent. Under 
whatever aspect -we view tbis cranium, whether we regard its 
vertical depression, the enormous thickness of its supraciliary 
ridges, its sloping occiput, or its long and straight squamosal 
suture, we meet with ape-like characters, stamping it as the most 
pithecoid of human crania yet discovered. But Professor Schaafi- 
hausen states {supra, p. 99), that the cranium, in its present 
condition, holds 1033.24 cubic centimetres of water, or about 63 
cubic inches, and as the entire skull could hardly have held less 
than an additional 12 cubic inches, its capacity may be estimated 
at about Y5 cubic inches, which is the average capacity given by 
Morton for Polynesian and Hottentot skulls. 

So large a mass of brain as this would alone suggest that 
the pithecoid tendencies indicated by this skull did not extend deep 
into the organization; and this conclusion is borne out by the 
dimensions of the other bones of the skeleton given by Professor 
Schaaffhausen which shows that the absolute height and relative 
proportions of the limbs, were quite those of an European of 
middle stature. The bones are indeed stouter, but this and the 
great development of the muscular ridges noted by Dr. Schaaff- 
hausen, are characters to be expected in savages. The Patago- 
nians, exposed without shelter or protection to a climate possibly 



120 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

not very dissimilar from that of Europe at the time during which 
the Neanderthal man lived, are remarkable for the stoutness of 
their limb bones. 

In no sense, then, can the Neanderthal bones be regarded as 
the remains of a human being intermediate between Men and Apes. 



Fig. 32. — Ancient Danish skull from a tnmiilns at Borreby ; one-third 
of the natural size. Prom a camera liicida drawing by Mr. Busk. 

At most, they demonstrate the existence of a Man whose skull 
may be said to revert somewhat towards the pithecoid type — just 
as a Carrier, or a Pouter, or a Tumbler, may sometimes put on 
the plumage of its primitive stock, the Columha livia. And in- 



FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN 121 

deed, though truly the most pithecoid of known human skulls, the 
Neanderthal cranium is by no means so isolated as it appears 
to be at first, but forms, in reality, the extreme term of a series 
leading gradually from it to the highest and best developed of hu- 
man crania. On the one hand, it is closely approached by the 
flattened Australian skulls, of which I have spoken, from which 
other Australian forms lead us gradually up to skulls having very 
much the type of the Engis cranium. And, on the other hand, it 
is even more closely affined to the skulls of certain ancient people 
who inhabited Denmark during the '' stone period," and were 
probably either contemporaneous with, or later than, the makers 
of the " refuse heaps," or " Kjokkenmoddings " of that country. 

The correspondence between the longitudinal contour of the 
Neanderthal skull and that of some of those skulls from the tu- 
muli at Borreby, very accurate drawings of which have been made 
by Mr. Busk, is very close. The occiput is quite as retreating, the 
supraciliary ridges are nearly as prominent, and the skull is as 
low. Furthermore, the Borreby skull resembles the Neanderthal 
form more closely than any of the Australian skulls do, by the 
much more rapid retrocession of the forehead. On the other hand, 
the Borreby skulls are all somewhat broader, in proportion to their 
length, than the Neanderthal skull, while some attain that propor- 
tion of breadth to length (80 : 100) which constitutes brachyce- 
phaly.* 

In conclusion, I may say, that the fossil remains of Man hith- 
erto discovered do not seem to me to take us appreciably nearer 
to that lower pithecoid form, by the modification of which he has, 
probably, become what he is. And considering what is now known 
of the most ancient Races of men; seeing that they fashioned 
flint axes and flint knives and bone-skewers, of much the same 
pattern as those fabricated by the lowest savages at the present 
day, and that we have every reason to believe the habits and 
modes of living of such people to have remained the same from the 
time of the Mammoth and the tichorhine Rhinoceros till now, I do 
not know that this result is other than might be expected. 

[* For a further discussion of the characters of the Neanderthal skull, 
see "Natural History Review," 1864. I there say (p. 443) : "That the 
Neanderthal skull exhibits the lowest type of human cranium at present 
known, so far as it presents certain pithecoid characters in a more 
exaggerated form than any other : but that, inasmuch as a complete 
series of gradations can be found, among recent human skulls, between 
it and the best developed forms, there is no ground for separating its 
possessor specifically, still less generically, from Homo sapiens. At pres- 
ent, we have no sufficient warranty for declaring it to be either the type 
of a distinct race, or a member of any existing one ; nor do the anatomical 
characters of the skull justify any conclusion as to the age to which it 
belongs." See also the essay on the Aryan question in this volume. 
1894.] 



122 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

Where, then, must we look for primaeval Man? Was the oldest 
Homo sapiens pliocene or miocene, or yet more ancient? In still 
older strata do the fossilized bones of an ape more anthropoid, 
or a Man more pithecoid, than any yet known await the researches 
of some unborn paleontologist? 

Time will show. But, in the meanwhile, if any form of the doc- 
trine of progressive development is correct, we must extend by 
long epochs the most liberal estimate that has yet been made of 
the antiquity of Man. 



METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 123 



IV. 

ON THE METHODS AND KESIJLTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 

ETHNOLOGY is the science which determines the distinctive 
characters of the persistent modifications of mankind ; which 
ascertains the distribution of those modifications in present 
and past times, and seeks to discover the causes, or conditions of 
existence, both of the modifications and of their distribution. I 
say " persistent " modifications, because, unless incidentally, eth- 
nology has nothing to do with chance and transitory peculiarities 
of human structure. And I speak of " persistent modifications " 
or " stocks " rather than of " varieties," or " races," or " species," 
because each of these last well-known terms implies on the part 
of its employer, a preconceived opinion touching one of those 
problems, the solution of which is the ultimate object of the 
science; and in regard to which, therefore, ethnologists are espe- 
cially bound to keep their minds open and their judgments freely 
balanced. 

Ethnology, as thus defined, is a branch of Anthropology, the 
great science which unravels the complexities of human struc- 
ture; traces out the relations of man to other animals; studies 
all that is especially human in the mode in which man's complex 
functions are performed; and searches after the conditions which 
haYe determined his presence in the world. And anthropology is 
a section of Zoology, which again is the animal half of Biology 
— the science of life and living things. 

Such is the position of ethnology, such are the objects of 
the ethnologist. The paths or methods, by following which he may 
hope to reach his goal, are diverse. He may work at man from the 
point of view of the pure zoologist, and investigate the anatomical 
and physiological peculiarities of Negroes, Australians, or Mon- 
golians, just as he would inquire into those of pointers, terriers, 
and turnspits, — " persistent modifications " of man's almost uni- 
versal companion. Or he may seek aid from researches into the 
most human manifestation of humanity — Language; and assum- 
ing that what is true of speech is true of the speaker — a hy- 



124 MAN'S PLACID IN NATURE 

pothesis as questionable in science as it is in ordinary life — he 
may apply to mankind themselves the conclusions drawn from a 
searching analysis of their words and grammatical forms. 

Or, the ethnologist may turn to the study of the practical life of 
men; and relying upon the inherent conservatism and small in- 
ventiveness of untutored mankind, he may hope to discover in 
manners and customs, or in weapons, dwellings, and other handi- 
work, a clue to the origin of the resemblances and differences 
of nations. Or, he may resort to that kind of evidence which is 
yielded by History proper, and consists of the beliefs of men 
concerning past events, embodied in traditional, or in written 
testimony. Or, when that thread breaks, Archaeology, which is the 
interpretation of the unrecorded remains of man's works, belong- 
ing to the epoch since the world has reached its present condition, 
may still guide him. And, when even the dim light of archaeology 
fades, there yet remains Palaeontology, which, in these latter years 
has brought to daylight once more the exuvia of ancient popula- 
tions, whose world was not our world, who have been buried 
in river beds immemorially dry, or carried by the rush of waters 
into caves, inaccessible to inundation since the dawn of tradi- 
tion. 

Along each, or all, of these paths the ethnologist may press 
towards his goal; but they are not equally straight, or sure, or 
easy to tread. The way of palaeontology has but just been laid 
open to us. Archaeological and historical investigations are of 
great value for all those peoples whose ancient state has differed 
widely from their present condition, and who have the good or 
evil fortune to possess a history. But on taking a broad survey 
of the world, it is astonishing how few nations present either con- 
dition. Kespecting five-sixths of the persistent modifications of 
mankind, history and archaeology are absolutely silent. For half 
the rest, they might as well be silent for anything that is to be 
made of their testimony. And, finally, when the question arises 
as to what was the condition of mankind more than a paltry 
two or three thousand years ago, history and archaeology are, 
for the most part, mere dumb dogs. What light does either >of 
these branches of knowledge throw on the past of the man of 
the New World, if we except the Central Americans and the Peru- 
vians; on that of the Africans, save those of the Valley of the 
Nile and a fringe of the Mediterranean; on that of all the Poly- 
nesian, Australian, and central Asiatic peoples, the former of 
whom probably, and the last certainly, were, at the dawn of his- 
tory, substantially what they are now? While thankfully accept- 



METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 125 

ing what history has to give him, therefore, the ethnologist 
must not look for too much from her. 

Is more to be expected from inquiries into the customs and 
handicrafts of man? It is to be feared not. In reasoning from 
identity of custom to identity of stock the difficulty always ob- 
trudes itself, that the minds of men being everywhere similar, 
differing in quality and quantity but not in kind of faculty, like 
circumstances must tend to produce like contrivances; at any 
rate, so long as the need to be met and conquered is of a very 
simple kind. That two nations use calabashes or shells for drink- 
ing- vessels, or that they employ spears, or clubs, or swords and axes 
of stone and metal as weapons and implements, cannot be regarded 
as evidence that these two nations had a common origin, or even 
that intercommunication ever took place between them; seeing 
that the convenience of using calabashes or shells for such pur- 
poses, and the advantage of poking an enemy with a sharp stick, 
or hitting him with a heavy one, must be early forced by nature 
upon the mind of even the stupidest savage. And when he had 
found out" the use of a stick, he would need no prompting to 
discover the value of a chipped or whetted stone, or of an angular 
piece of native metal, for the same object. On the other hand, it 
may be doubted, whether the chances are not greatly against inde- 
pendent peoples arriving at the manufacture of a boomerang, or 
of a bow; which last, if one comes to think of it, is a rather com- 
plicated apparatus; and the tracing of the distribution of inven- 
tions as complex as these, and of such strange customs as betel- 
chewing and tobacco-smoking, may afford valuable ethnological 
hints. 

Since the time of Leibnitz, and guided by such men as Hum- 
boldt, Abel Remusat, and Klaproth, Philology has taken far higher 
ground. Thus Prichard affirms that '' the history of nations, 
termed Ethnology, must be mainly founded on the relations of 
their languages." 

An eminent living philologer, August Schleicher, in a recent 
essay, puts forward the claims of his science still more forcibly: — 

" If, however, language is the human Kar'' i^ox'^f', t^ie suggestion 
arises whether it should not form the basis of any scientific systematic 
arrangement of mankind ; whether the foundation of the natural classi- 
fication of the genus Homo has not been discovered in it. 

" How little constant are cranial peculiarities and other so-called race 
characters ! Language, on the other hand, is always a perfectly con- 
stant diagnostic. A German may occasionally compete in hair and 
prognathism with a negro, but a negro language will never be his mother 
tongue. Of how little importance for mankind the so-called race char- 



126 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

acters are, is shown by the fact that speakers of languages belonging to 
one and the same linguistic family may exhibit the peculiarities of 
various races. Thus the settled Osmanli Turk exhibits Caucasian char- 
acters, whilst other so-called Tartaric Turks exemplify the Mongol 
type. On the other hand, the Magyar and the Basque do not depart in 
any essential physical peculiarity from the Indo-Germans, whilst the 
Magyar, Basque, and Indo-Germanic tongues are widely different. 
Apart from their inconstancy, again, the so-called race characters can 
hardly yield a scientifically natural system. Languages, on the other 
hand, readily fall into a natural arrangement, like that of which other 
vital products are susceptible, especially when viewed from their morpho- 
logical side. . . . The externally visible structure of the cerebral and 
facial skeletons, and of the body generally, is less important than that 
no less material but infinitely more delicate corporeal structure, the 
function of which is speech. I conceive, therefore, that the natural clas- 
sification of languages, is also the natural classification of mankind. 
With language, moreover, all the higher manifestations of man's vital 
activity are closely interwoven, so that these receive due recognition in 
and by that of speech."* 

Without the least desire to depreciate the value of philology as 
an adjuvant to ethnology, I must venture to doubt, with Rudolphi, 
Desmoulins, Crawfurd, and others, its title to the leading position 
claimed for it by the writers whom I have just quoted. On the 
contrary, it seem^ to me obvious that, though, in the absence of 
any evidence to the contrary, unity of languages may afford a 
certain presumption in favour of the unity of stock of the peoples 
speaking those languages, it cannot be held to prove that unity of 
stock, unless philologers are prepared to demonstrate, that no 
nation can lose its language and acquire that of a distinct nation, 
without a change of blood corresponding with the change of lan- 
guage. Desmoulins long ago put this argument exceedingly 
well : — 

" Let us imagine the recurrence of one of those slow, or sudden, politi- 
cal revolutions, or say of those secular changes which among different 
people and at different epochs have annihilated historical monuments 
and even extinguished tradition. In that case, the evidence, now so 
clear, that the negroes of Hayti were slaves imported by a French 
colony, who, by the very effect of the subordination involved in slavery 
lost their own diverse languages and adopted that of their masters, 
would vanish. And metaphysical philosophers, observing the identity of 
Haytian French with that spoken on the shores of the Seine and the 
Loire, would argue that the men of St. Domingo with woolly heads, 
black and oily skins, small calves, and slightly bent knees, are of the 
same race, descended from the same parental stock, as the Frenchmen 
with silky brown, chestnut, or fair hair, and white skins. For they 



* August Schleicher. JJeher die Bedeutung der Sprache fiir die Nat- 
urgeschichte des MenscJien, pp. 16-18. 



METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 127 

would say, tlieir languages are more similar than French is to German 
or Spanish."* 

It must not be imagined that the case put by Desmoulins is a 
merely hypothetical one. Events precisely sirailar to the trans- 
port of a hodj of Africans to the West India Islands, indeed 
cannot have happened among uncivilised races, but similar results 
have followed the importation of bodies of conquerors among, an 
e"nslaved people over and over again. There is hardly a country 
in Europe in which two or more nations speaking widely differ- 
ent tongues have not become intermixed; and there is hardly a 
language of Europe of which we have any right to think that its 
structure affords a just indication of the amount of that inter- 
mixture. 

As Dr. Latham has well said: — 

" It is certain that the language of England is of Anglo-Saxon origin, 
and that the remains of the original Keltic are unimportant. It is by 
no means so certain that the blood of Englishmen is equally Germanic. 
A vast amount of Kelticism, not found in our tongue, very probably 
exists in our pedigrees. The ethnology of France is still more compli- 
cated. Many writers make the Parisian a Roman on the strength of 
his language; whilst others make him a Kelt on the strength of certain 
moral characteristics, combined with the previous Kelticism of the 
original Gauls. Spanish and Portuguese, as languages, are derivations 
from the Latin : Spain and Portugal, as countries, are Iberic, Latin, 
Gothic, and Arab, in different proportions. Italian is modern Latin all 
the world over ; yet surely there must be much Keltic blood in Lom- 
bardy, and much Etruscan intermixture in Tuscany. 

" In the ninth century every man between the Elbe and the Niemen 
spoke some Slavonic dialect ; they now nearly all speak German. Surely 
the blood is less exclusively Gothic than the speech.f 

In other words, what philologer, if he had nothing but the 
vocabulary and grammar of the French and English languages to 
guide him, would dream of the real causes of the unlikeness of a 
Norman to a Provencal, of an Orcadian to a Cornishman? How 
readily might he be led to suppose that the different climatal 
conditions to which these speakers of one tongue have so long been 
exposed, have caused their physical differences; and how little 
would he suspect that these are due (as we happen to know they 
are) to wide differences of blood. 

Few take duly into account the evidence which exists as to the 
ease with which unlettered savages gain or lose a language. Cap- 
tain Erskine, in his interesting " Journal of a Cruise among the 

* Desmoulins, Hisfoire Naturelle des Races Humaines, p. 345. 
■{■ Latham, Mem and his migrations, p. 171, 



128 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

Islands of the Western Pacific," especially remarks upon the 
" avidity with which the inhabitants of the polyglot islands of 
Melanesia, from New Caledonia to the Solomon Islands, adopt the 
improvements of a more perfect language than their own, which 
different causes and accidental communication still continue to 
bring to them;^' and he adds that "among the Melanesian is- 
lands scarcely one was found by us which did not possess, in some 
cases still imperfectly, the decimal system of numeration in 
addition to their own, in which they reckon only to five." 

Yet how much philological reasoning in favour of the affinity or 
diversity of two distinct peoples has been based on the mere 
comparison of numerals ! 

But the most instructive example of the fallacy which may 
attach to merely philological reasonings, is that afforded by the 
reejeans, who are, physically, so- intimately connected with the 
adjacent Negritos of New Caledonia, &c., that no one can doubt 
to what stock they belong, and who yet, in the form and substance 
of their language, are Polynesian. The case is as remarkable as 
if the Canary Islands should have been found to be inhabited by 
negroes speaking Arabic, or some other clearly Semitic dialect, 
as their mother tongue. As it happens, the physical peculiari- 
ties of the Feejeans are so striking, and the conditions under 
which they live are so similar to those of the Polynesians, that no 
one has ventured to suggest that they are merely modified Polyne- 
sians — a suggestion which could otherwise certainly have been 
made. But if languages may he thus transferred from one stock 
to another, without any corresponding intermixture of blood, what 
ethnological value has philology? — what security does unity of 
language afford us that the speakers of that language may not have 
sprung from two, or three, or a dozen, distinct sources? 

Thus we come, at last, to the purely zoological method, from 
which it is not unnatural to expect more than from any other, 
seeing that, after all, the problems of ethnology are simply those 
which are presented to the zoologist by every widely distributed 
animal he studies. The father of modern zoology seems to have 
had no doubt upon this point. At the twenty-eighth page of the 
standard twelfth edition of the " Systema Naturae," in fact, we 
find: — 

I. Primates. 
Denies primores incisores: superiores IV. paralleli, mammw pec- 

torales II. 
1. Homo. Nosce te ipsum. 

Sapiens. 1. H. diurnus : varians cultura, loco. 

Ferus- Tetrapus, mutus, hirsutus. 



METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 



129 



EuropcBus /3. 



Asiaticus y. 



Afer 



d. 



Americanus a. Riifus, cholericus, rectus — Pilis nigris, rectis, crassis — • 

Naribus patulis — Facie cphelitica : Mento subimberbi. 
Pertina'X, contentus, liber. Pingit se lineis dsedaleis 

rubris. 
Regitur Consuetudine. 

Albus sanguineus torosus. Pilis flavescentibus, prolixis. 
Oculis coeruleis. 
Levis, argutus, inventor. Tegitur Vestimentis arctis. 

Regitur Ritibus. 
Luridus, melancholicus, rigidus. Pilis nigricantibus. 

Oculis fuscis. Severus, fastuosus, avarus. Tegitur 

Indumentis laxis. 
Regitur Opinionibus. 
Niger, phlegmaticus, laxus. Pilis atris, contortuplicatis. 

Cute holosericea. Naso simo. Lahiis tumidis. Femi- 

nis sinus pudoris. 
Mammw lactantes prolixee. 
Vafer, segnis, negligens. JJngit se pingui. Regitur 

Arbitrio. 
Solo (a) et arte (be) variat. : 

a. Alpini parvi, agiles, timidi. 
Patagonici magni, segnes. 

b. Monor chides ut minus fertiles : Hottentotti. 
Juncece puellss, abdomine attenuato : Europa^aj. 

c. Macrocepliali capiti conico : Chinenses. 
PlagiocepJiali capite antice compresso : Canadenses. 

Turn a few pages further on in the same volume, and there ap- 
pears, with a fine impartiality in the distribution of capitals and 
subdivisional headings : — 

III. Ferae. 
Denies primores superiores sew, acutiusculi, Canini solitarii. 



Monstrosus e. 



12. Canis. 



familiaris 


1. 


domesticus 


a. 


sag aw 


|8. 


grajus 


7. 



Dentes primores superiores VI. : laterales longiores dis- 
tantes : intermedii lobati. Inferiores VI. : laterales 
lobati. 

Laniarii solitarii, incurvati. 

Molares VI. s VII. (pluresve quam in reliquis.) 

C. Cauda (sinistrorsum) recurvata 

auriculis erectis, cauda subtus lanata. 

auriculis pendulis, digito spurio ad tibias posticas. 

magnitudine lupi, trunco curvato, rostro attenuato, 
&c. &c. 



Linnaeus' definition of what he considers to be mere varieties of 
the species Man are, it will be observed, as completely free from 
any allusion to linguistic peculiarities as those brief and pregnant 
sentences in which he sketches the characters of the varieties of 



130 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

the species Dog. " Pilis nigris, naribus patulis " may be set 
against " auriculis erectis, cauda subtus lanata ;" while the re- 
marks on the morals and manners of the human subject seem, as if 
they were thrown in merely by way of makeweight. 

Buffon, Blumenbach (the founder of ethnology as a special 
science), Kudolphi, Bory de St. Vincent, Desmoulins, Cuvier, 
Betzius, indeed I may say all the naturalists proper, have dealt 
with man from a no less completely zoological point of view ; while, 
as might have been expected, those who have been least naturalists, 
and most linguists, have most neglected the zoological method, 
the neglect culminating in those who have been altogether devoid 
of acquaintance with anatomy. 

Prichard's proposition, that language is more persistent than 
physical characters, is one which has never been proved, and in- 
deed admits of no proof, seeing that the records of language do not 
extend so far as those of physical characters. But until the 
superior tenacity of linguistic over physical peculiarities is 
shown, and until the abundant evidence which exists, that the 
language of a people may change without corresponding physical 
change in that people, is shown to be valueless, it is plain that 
the zoological court of appeal is the highest for the ethnologist, 
and that no evidence can be set against that derived from physical 
characters. 

What, then, will a new survey of mankind from the Linnean 
point of view teach us? 

The great antipodal block of land we call Australia has, speak- 
ing roughly, the form of a vast quadrangle, 2,000 miles on the 
side, and extends from the hottest tropical, to the middle of the 
temperate, zone. Setting aside the foreign colonists introduced 
within the last century, it is inhabited by people no less remarkable 
for the uniformity, than for the singularity, of their physical 
characters and social state. For the most part of fair stature, 
erect and well built, except for an unusual slenderness of the 
lower limbs, the Australians have dark, usually chocolate-coloured 
skins ; fine dark wavy hair ; dark eyes, overhung by beetle brows ; 
coarse, projecting jaws; broad and dilated, but not especially 
flattened, noses, and lips which, though prominent, are eminently 

flexible. 

The skulls of these people are always long and narrow, with a 
smaller development of the frontal sinuses than usually corresponds 
with such largely developed brow ridges. An Australian skull of 
a round form, or one the transverse diameter of which exceeds 
eight-tenths of its length, has never been seen. These people, 



METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 131 

in a word, are eminently " dolichocephalic," or long-headed ; but, 
with this one limitation, their crania present considerable varia- 
tions, some being comparatively high and arched, while others 
are more remarkably depressed than almost any other human 
skulls. The female pelvis differs comparatively little from the 
European; but in the pelves of male Australians which I have 
examined, the antero-posterior and transverse diameters approach 
equality more nearly than is the case in Europeans. 

No Australian tribe has ever been known to cultivate the 
ground,* to use metals, pottery, or any kind of textile fabric. 
They rarely construct huts. Their means of navigation are lim- 
ited to rafts or canoes, made of sheets of bark. Clothing, except 
skin cloaks for protection from cold, is a superfluity with which 
they dispense; and though they have some singular weapons, al- 
most peculiar to themselves, they are wholly unacquainted with 
bows and arrows. 

It is but a step, as it were, across Bass's Straits to Tasmania. 
Neither climate nor the characteristic forms of vegetable or 
animal life change largely on the south side of the Straits, but 
the early voyagers found Man singularly different from him on 
the north side. The skin of the Tasmanian was dark, though he 
lived between parallels of latitude corresponding with those of 
middle Europe in our own hemisphere; his jaws projected, his 
head was long and narrow; his civilization was about on a foot- 
ing with that of the Australian, if not lower, for I cannot discover 
that the Tasmanian understood the use of the throwing-stick. 
But he differed from the Australian in his woolly negro-like hair ; 
whence the name of Negrito, which has been applied to him 
and his congeners. 

Such Negritos — differing more or less from the Tasmanian but 
agreeing with him in dark skin and woolly hair — occupy New 
Caledonia, the New Hebrides, the Louisiade Archipelago; and 
stretching to the Papuan Islands, and for a doubtful extent beyond 
them to the north and west, from a sort of belt, or zone, of 
Negrito population, interposed between the Australians on the 
west and the inhabitants of the great majority of the Pacific is- 
lands on the east. 

The cranial characters of the Negritos vary considerably more 
than those of their skin and hair, the most notable circumstance 
being the strong Australian aspect which distinguishes many 

[* At Cape York we found that the natives had learned from their 
Papuan neighbours to grow a little coarse tobacco ; and, elsewhere, yams 
are said to be grown, but hardly cultivated. Plaiting, basket-making, and 
netting are practised. — 1894.] 



132 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

Negrito skulls, while others tend rather towards forms common 
in the Polynesian islands. 

In civilisation, New Caledonia exhibits an advance upon Tasma- 
nia, and, farther north, there is a still greater improvement. But 
the bows and arrows, the perched houses, the outrigger canoes, the 
habits of betel-chewing and of kawa-drinking, which abound more 
or less among the northern Negritos, are probably to be regarded 
^not as the products of an indigenous civilization, but merely as 
indications of the extent to which foreign influences have modified 
the primitive social state of these people. 

From Tasmania or New Caledonia, to New Zealand or Tongata- 
boo, is again but a brief voyage : but it brings about a still more 
notable change in the aspect of the indigenous population than 
that effected by the passage of Bass's Straits. Instead of being 
chocolate-coloured people, the Maories and Tongans are light 
brown; instead of woolly, they have straight, or wavy, black hair. 
And if from New Zealand, we travel some 5,000 miles east to 
Easter Island; and from Easter Island, for as great a distance 
north-west, to the Sandwich Islands; and thence Y,000 miles, west- 
ward and southward, to Sumatra; and even across the Indian 
Ocean, into the interior of Madagascar, we shall everywhere meet 
with people whose hair is straight or wavy, and whose skins exhibit 
various shades of brown. These are the Polynesians, Micrones- 
ians, Indonesians, whom Latham has grouped together under the 
common title of Amphinesians. 

The cranial characters of these people, as of the Negritos, are 
less constant than those of their skin and hair. The Maori has 
a long skull; the Sandwich Islander a broad skull. Some, like 
these, have strong brow ridges; others like the Dayaks and many 
Polynesians, have hardly any nasal indentation. It is only in 
the westernmost parts of their area that the Amphinesian nations 
know anything about bows and arrows as weapons, or are ac- 
quainted with the use of metals or with pottery. Everywhere they 
cultivate the ground, construct houses, and skilfully build and 
manage outrigger, or double canoes; while, almost everywhere, 
they use some kind of fabric for clothing. 

Between Easter Island, or the Sandwich Islands, and any 
part of the American coast is a much wider interval than that 
between Tasmania and New Zealand, but the ethnological inter- 
val between the American and the Polynesian is less than that 
between either of the previously named stocks. 

The typical American" has straight black hair and dark eyes, 
his skin exhibiting various shades of reddish or yellowish brown, 
sometimes inclining to olive. The face is broad and scantily 



METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 133 

bearded; the skull wide and high. Such people extend frgrm Pata- 
gonia to Mexico, and much farther north along the west coast. 
In the main a race of hunters, they had nevertheless, at the time 
of the discovery of the Americas, attained a remarkable degree 
of civilization in some localities. They had domesticated rumi- 
nants, and not only practised agriculture, but had learned the 
value of irrigation. They manufactured textile fabrics, were 
masters of the potter's art, and knew how to erect massive build- 
ings of stone. They understood the working of the precious, 
though not of the useful, metals ; ^ and had even attained to a 
rude kind of hieroglyphic, or picture, writing. The Americans 
not only employ the bow and arrow, but, like some Amphinesians, 
the blow-pipe, as offensive weapons: but I am not aware that the 
outrigger canoe has ever been observed among them. 

I have reason to suspect that some of the Fuegian tribes differ 
cranially from the typical Americans ;t and the Northern and 
Eastern American tribes have longer skulls than their southern 
compatriots. But the Esquimaux, who roam on the desolate and 
ice-bound coast of Arctic America, certainly present us with a 
new stock. The Esquimaux (among whom the Greenlanders 
are included), in fact, though they share the straight black hair 
of the proper Americans, are generally a duller complexioned, 
shorter, and a more squat people, and they have still more promi- 
nent cheek-bones. But the circumstance which most completely 
separates them from the typical Americans, is the form of their 
skulls, which instead of being broad, high, and truncated behind, 
are eminently long, usually low, and prolonged backwards. These 
Hyperborean people clothe themselves in skins, know nothing of 
pottery, and hardly anything of metals. Dependent for existence 
upon the produce of the chase, the seal and the whale are to them 
what the cocoa-nut tree and the plantain are to the savages of 
more genial climates. Not only are those animals meat and rai- 
ment> but they are canoes, sledges, weapons, tools, windows, and 
fire; while they support the dog, who is the indispensable ally and 
beast of burden of the Esquimaux. 

It is admitted that the Tchuktchi, on the eastern side of Beh- 
ring's Straits, are, in all essential respects, Esquimaux; and I do 
not know that there is any satisfactory evidence to show that the 
Tunguses and Samoiedes do not essentially share the same physi- 
cal characters. Southward, there are indications of Esquimaux 
characters among the Japanese, and it is possible that their influ- 
ence may be traced yet further. 

[* With the exception of copper and bronze. — 1894.] 
[t A suspicion subsequently verified. See a memoir on American 
Skulls, Journal of Anatomy and Physiology. Vol. 16. — 1894.] 



134 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

However this may be, Eastern Asia, from Mantchouria to Siam, 
Thibet, and Northern Hindostan, is continuously inhabited by 
men, usually of short stature, with skins varying in colour from 
yellow to olive; with broad cheek-bones and faces that, owing to 
the insignificance of the nose, are exceedingly flat ; and with small, 
obliquely-set * black eyes and straight black hair, which sometimes 
attains a very great length upon the scalp, but is always scanty 
upon the face and body. The skull, never much elongated, is, 
generally, remarkably broad and rounded, with hardly any nasal 
depression, and but slight, if any, projection of the jaws. Many 
of these people, from whom the old name of Mongolians may 
be retained, are nomades; others, as the Chinese, have attained a 
remarkable and apparently indigenous civilization, only surpassed 
by that of Europe. 

At the north-western extremity of Europe the Lapps repeat the 
characters of the Eastern Asiatics. Between these extreme points, 
the Mongolian stock is not continuous, but is represented by a 
chain of more or less isolated tribes, who pass under the name of 
Calmucks and Tartars, and form Mongolian islands, as it were, in 
the midst of an ocean of other people. 

The waves of this ocean are the nations for whom, in order 
to avoid the endless confusion produced by our present half -phys- 
ical, half -philological classification, I shall use a new name — Xan- 
THOCHROi — indicating that they are " yellow " haired and " pale " 
in complexion. The Chinese historians of the Han dynasty, writ- 
ing in the third century before our era, describe, with much 
minuteness, certain numerous and powerful barbarians with " yel- 
low hair, green eyes, and prominent noses," who, the black-haired, 
skew-eyed, and flat-nosed annalists remark in passing, are "just 
like the apes from whom they are descended." These people held 
in force, the upper waters of the Yenisei, and thence under various 
names stretched southward to Thibet and Kashgar. Fair-haired 
and blue-eyed northern enemies were no less known to the ancient 
Hindoos, to the Persians, and to the Egyptians, on the south and 
west of the great central Asiatic area; while the testimony of all 
European antiquity is to the effect that, before and since the 
period in question, there lay beyond the Danube, the Rhine, and 
the Seine, a vast and dangerous yellow or red-haired, fair-skinned, 
blue-eyed population. Whether the disturbers of the marches of 
the Roman Empire were called Gauls or Germans, Goths, Alans, 
or Scythians, one thing seems certain, that until the invasion of 
the Huns, they were largely tall, fair, blue-eyed men. 

r* The obliquity, it must be recollected, is not in the position of the 
eveball but arises from the arrangement of the skin in the neighbourhood 
of the eyelids.— 1894.] 



METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 135 

If any one should think fit to assume that, in the year 100 b. c, 
there was one continuous Xanthochroic population from the 
Khine to the Yenisei, and from the Ural mountains to the Hin- 
doo Koosh, I know not that any evidence exists by which that posi- 
tion could be upset, while the existing state of things is rather in 
its favour than otherwise. For the Scandinavians, the Germans, 
the Slavonian and the Finnish tribes, to a great extent; some of 
the inhabitants of Greece, many Turks, some Kirghis, and some 
Mantchous, the Ossetes in the Caucasus, the Siahposh, the 
Eohillas, are at the present day fair, yellow or red-haired, and 
blue-eyed; and the interpolation of tribes of Mongolian hair and 
complexion, as far west as the Caspian Steppes and the Crimea, 
might justly be accounted for by those subsequent westward irrup- 
tions of the Mongolian stock, of which history furnishes abundant 
testimony. The furthermost limit of the Xanthochroi north-west- 
ward is Iceland and the British Isles; south-westward, they are 
traceable at intervals through Syria and the Berber country, end- 
ing in the Canary Islands. The cranial characters of the Xantho- 
chroi are not, at present, strictly definable. The Scandinavians 
are certainly long-headed; but many Germans, the Swiss so far as 
they are Germanized, the Slavonians, the Fins, and the Turks, 
are short-headed. What were the cranial characters of the ancient 
" Usuns " and "Ting-lings " of the valley of the Yenisei is un- 
known. 

West and south of the area occupied by the chief mass of the 
Xanthochroi, and north of the Sahara, is a broad belt of land, 
shaped like a >-^ Between the forks of the Y lies the Mediter-. 
ranean; the stem of it is Arabia. The stem is bathed by the 
Indian Ocean, the western ends of the forks by the Atlantic. The 
majority of the people inhabiting the area thus roughly defined 
have, like the Xanthochroi, prominent noses, pale skins and wavy 
hair, with abundant beards; but, unlike them, the hair is black 
or dark and the eyes usually so. They may thence be called the 
Melanochroi. Such people are found in the British Islands, in 
Western and Southern Gaul, in Spain, in Italy south of the Po, 
in parts of Greece, in Syria, and Arabia, stretching as far north- 
ward and eastward as the Caucasus and Persia. They are the chief 
inhabitants of Africa north of the Sahara, and like the Xantho- 
chroi, they end in the Canary Islands. They are known as Kelts, 
Iberians, Etruscans, Bomans, Pelasgians, Berbers; Semites. The 
majority of them are long-headed, and of smaller stature than the 
Xanthochroi.* It is needless to remark upon the civilization of 

[* See the Essay on the Aryan Question, in this volume, for some 
qualifications of these statements necessitated by further knowledge. — 
1894.] 



136 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

these two great stocks. With them has originated everything 
that is highest in science, in art, in law, in politics, and in me- 
chanical inventions. In their hands, at the present moment, lies 
the order of the social world, and to them its progress is coromitted. 

South of the Atlas, and of the Great Desert, Middle Africa 
exhibits a new type of humanity in the Negro, with his dark skin, 
woolly hair, projecting jaws, and thick lips. As a rule, the skull 
of the Negro is remarkably long; it rarely approaches the broad 
type, and never exhibits the roundness of the Mongolian. A 
cultivator of the ground, and dwelling in villages; a maker of 
pottery, and a worker in the useful as well as the ornamental 
metals; employing the bow and arrow as well as the spear, the 
typical negro stands high in point of civilization above the Aus- 
tralian. 

Resembling the Negroes in cranial characters, the Bushmen 
of South Africa differ from them in their yellowish brown skins, 
their tufted hair, their remarkably small stature, and their ten- 
dency to fatty and other integumentary outgrowths; nor is the 
wonderful click with which their speech is interspersed to be over- 
looked in enumerating the physical characteristics of this strange 
people. 

The so-called " Dravidian " populations of Southern Hindostan 
lead us back, physically as well as geographically, towards the 
Australians;* while the diminutive Mincopies of the Andaman 
Islands lie midway between the Negro and Negrito races, and, 
as Mr. Busk has pointed out, occasionally present the rare combi- 
nation of brachycephaly, or short-headedness, with woolly hair. 

In the preceding progress along the outskirts of the habitable 
world, eleven readily distinguishable stocks, or persistent modifi- 
cations, of mankind, have been recognized. I have purposely 
omitted such people as the Abyssinians and the Hindoos of the 
valleys of the Ganges and Indus, who there is every reason to be- 
lieve result from the intermixture of distinct stocks. Perhaps I 
ought for like reasons, to have ignored the Mincopies. But I 
do not pretend that my enumeration is complete, or, in any seijse, 
perfect. It is enough for my purpose if it be admitted (and T 

[* Of the affinities of these stocks I think there can be no doubt. I 
was formerly inclined to believe that the ancient Egyptian was the 
highest term in an ascending series : Australian — Dravidian — Egyptian 
of allied stocks. 'And I believe still that there is a good deal to be said 
for that hypothesis. One of the most interesting problems at present 
is the relation of the prsesemitic population of Babylonia to the Dra- 
vidians, on the one hand, and the Old Egyptian on the other. Only 
one point appears to me to be quite clear, if the statues of Tell Loh 
represent these people; that there is not a trace of Mongolian affinity 
about them.— 1894.] 



METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 1B7 

think it cannot be denied) that those which I have mentioned 
exist, are well marked, and occupy the greater part of the habita- 
ble globe. 

In attempting to classify these persistent modifications after 
the manner of naturalists, the first circumstance that attracts 
one's attention is the broad contrast between the people with 
straight and wavy hair, and those with crisp, woolly, or tufted 
hair. Bory de St. Vincent, noting this fundamental distinction, 
divided mankind accordingly into the two primary groups of 
Leiotriclii and Ulotrichi, — terms which are open to criticism, 
but which I adopt in the accompanying table, because they have 
been used. It is better for science to accept a faulty name which 
has the merit of existence, than to burthen it with a faultless 
newly invented one. 

Leiotrichi. Ulotrichi. 



Dolichocephali. Brachycephali. Dolichocephali. Brachycephali. 

Leucous. 

.... Xanthochroi .... 

Leucomelanous. 

. . . .Melanochroi. ... 

Xanthomelanous. 

Esquimaux. Mongolians. Bushmen. 

Amphinesians. 

xir 1 Americans. 

Melanous. 

Australians. Negroes. Mincopies (?) 

Negritos. 

*** The names of the stocks known only since the fifteenth century are 

put into italics. If the " Skrdlings " of the Norse discoverers of America 

were Esquimaux, Europeans iecame acquainted with the latter six or 

seven centuries earlier. 

Under each of these divisions are two columns, one for the 
Brachycephali, or short heads, and one for the Dolichocephali,* 
or long heads. Again, each column is subdivided transversely into 
four compartments, one for the '"Heucous," people with fair com- 
plexions and yellow or red hair ; one for the " leucomelanous," 
with dark hair and pale skins ; one for the " xanthomelanous," 
with black hair and yellow, brown, or olive skins; and one for 
the " melanous," with black hair and dark brown or blackish skins. 

It is curious to observe' that almost all the woolly-haired people 
are also long-headed; while among the straight -haired nations 
broad heads preponderate, and only two stocks, the Esquimaux 
and the Australians, are exclusively long-headed. 

* Skulls, the transverse diameter of which is more than eight-tenths 
the long diameter, are short; those which have the transverse diameter 
less than eight-tenths the longitudinal, are long. 



138 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

One of the acutest and most original of ethnologists, Desmou- 
lins, originated the idea, which has subsequently been fully devel- 
oped by Agassiz, that the distribution of the persistent modifica- 
tions of man is governed by the same laws as that of other 
animals, and that both fall into the same great distributional prov- 
inces. Thus, Australia, America, south of Mexico; the Arctic 
regions; Europe, Syria, Arabia, and North Africa, taken together, 
are each regions eminently characterised by the nature of their 
animal and vegetable populations, and each, as we have seen, 
has its peculiar and characteristic form of man. But it may be 
doubted whether the parallel thus drawn will hold good strictly, 
and in all cases. The Tasmanian Fauna and Flora are essentially 
Australian, and the like is true, to a less extent, of many, if not 
of all, the Papuan islands; but the Negritos who inhabit these 
islands are strikingly different from the Australians. Again, the 
differences between the Mongolians and the Xanthochroi are out 
of all proportion greater than those between the Faunae and Florae 
of Central and Eastern Asia. But whatever the difficulties in the 
way of the detailed application of this comparison of the distribu- 
tion of men with that of animals, it is well worthy of being borne 
in mind, and carried as far as it will go. 

Apart from all speculation, a very curious fact regarding the 
distribution of the persistent modifications of mankind becomes 
apparent on inspecting an Ethnological chart, projected in such a 
manner that the Pacific Ocean occupies its centre. Such a chart 
exhibits an Australian area occupied by dark smooth-haired people, 
separated by an incomplete inner zone of dark woolly-haired 
Negritos and Negroes, from an outer zone of comparatively pale 
and smooth-haired men, occupying the Americas, and nearly all 
Asia* and North Africaf 

Such is a brief sketch of the characters and distribution of the 
persistent modifications, or stocks, of mankind at the present day. 
If we seek for direct evidence of how long this state of things 
has lasted, we shall find little enough, and that little far from 
satisfactory. Of the eleven different stocks enumerated, seven 
have been known to us for less than 400 years; and of these seven 
not one possessed a fragment of written history at the time it 
came into contact with European civilization. The other four — 
the Negroes, Mongolians, Xanthochroi, and Melanochroi — have 
always existed in some of the localities in which they are now 
found, nor do the negroes ever seem to have voluntarily travelled 
beyond the limits of their present area. But ancient history is in 

[* Hindostan excepted. — 1894.] 
[t Egypt excepted.— 1894.] 



METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 139 

a great measure the record of the mutual encroachments of the 
other three stocks. 

On the whole, however, it is wonderful how little change has been 
effected by these mutual invasions and intermixtures. As at the 
present time, so at the dawn of history, the Melanochroi fringed 
the Atlantic and the Mediterranean; the Xanthochroi occupied 
most of Central and Eastern Europe, and much of Western and 
Central Asia; while Mongolians held the extreme east of the Old 
World. So far as history teaches us, the populations of Europe, 
Asia, and Africa were, twenty* centuries ago, just what they are 
now, in their broad features and general distribution. 

The evidence yielded by Archaeology is not very definite, but so 
far as it goes, it is to much the same effect. The mound builders 
of Central America seem to have had the characteristic short 
and broad head of the modern inhabitants of that continent. The 
tumuli and tombs of Ancient Scandinavia, of pre-Roman Britain, 
of Gaul, of Switzerland, reveal two types of skull — a broad and 
a long — of which, in Scandinavia, the broad seems to have be- 
longed to the older stock, while the reverse is probably the case in 
Britain, and certainly in Switzerland. It has been assumed that 
the broad-skulled people of ancient Scandinavia were Lapps; 
but there is no proof of the fact, and they may have been, like the 
broad-skulled Swiss and Germans, Xanthochroi. One of the great- 
est of ethnological difficulties is to know where the modern Swedes, 
Norsemen, and Saxons got their long heads, as all their neigh- 
bors, Fins, Lapps, Slavonians, and South Germans, are broad- 
headed. Again, who were the small-handed f long-headed people 
of the " bronze epoch," and what has become of the infusion of 
their blood among the Xanthochroi ? 

At present Palaeontology yields no safe data to the ethnologist. 
We know absolutely nothing of the ethnological characters of the 
men of Abbeville and Hoxne; but must be content with the demon- 
stration, in itself of immense value, that Man existed in Western 
Europe when its physical condition was widely different from what 
it is now, and when animals existed, which, though they belong 
to what is, properly speaking, the present order of things, have long 
been extinct. Beyond the limits of a fraction of Europe, Palaeon- 
tology tells us nothing of man or of his works. 

To sum up our knowledge of the ethnological past of man; so 
far as the light is bright, it shows him substantially as he is 

[*We may now safely say thirty or forty. — 1894.] 

[f Supposed to be small-handed from the small handles of their bronze 

swords. But I observe in the Assyrian sculptures the same small handles, 

while the hands are by no means small. How did the Assyrians use 

their swords? So far as I know thrusting alone is represented. — 1894.] 



140 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

now; and, when it grows dim, it permits us to see no sign that he 
was other than he is now. 

It is a general belief that men of different stocks differ as much 
physiologically as they do morphologically ; but it is very hard 
to prove, in any particular case, how much of a supposed national 
characteristic is due to inherent physiological peculiarities, and 
how much to the influence of circumstances. There is much evi- 
dence to show, however, that some stocks enjoy a partial or com- 
plete immunity from diseases which destroy, or decimate, others. 
Thus there seems good ground for the belief that Negroes are re- 
markably exempt from yellow fever; and that, among Europeans, 
the melanochroic people are less obnoxious to its ravages than the 
xanthochroic. But many writers, not content with physiological 
differences of this kind, undertake to prove the existence of others 
of far greater moment; and, indeed, to show that certain stocks of 
mankind exhibit, more or less distinctly, the physiological charac- 
ters of true species. Unions between these stocks, and still more 
between the half-breeds arising from the mixture, are affirmed to 
be either infertile, or less fertile than those which take place be- 
tween males and females of either stock under the same circum- 
stances. Some go so far as to assert that no mixed breeds of man- 
kind can maintain themselves without the assistance of one or 
other of the parent stocks, and that, consequently, they must in- 
evitably be obliterated in the long run. 

Here, again, it is exceedingly difficult to obtain trustworthy evi- 
dence and to free the effects of the pure physiological experiment 
from adventitious influences. The only trial which, by a strange 
chance, was kept clear of all such influences — the only instance 
in which two distinct stocks of mankind were crossed, and their 
progeny intermarried without any admixture from without — is 
the famous case of the Pitcairn Islanders, who were the progeny of 
Bligh's English sailors by Tahitian women. The results of this 
experiment, as everybody knows, are dead against those who main- 
tain the doctrine of human hybridity, seeing that the Pitcairn 
Islanders, even though they necessarily contracted consanguineous 
marriages, throve and multiplied exceedingly. 

But those who are disposed to believe in this doctrine should 
study the evidence brought forward in its support by M. Broca, 
its latest and ablest advocate, and compare this evidence with 
that which the botanists, as represented by a Gaertner or by a 
Darwin, think it indispensable to obtain before they will admit the 
infertility of crosses between two allied kinds of plants. They 
will then, I think, be satisfied that the doctrine in question rests 
upon a very unsafe foundation ; that the facts adduced in its sup- 



METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 141 

port are capable of many other interpretations; and, indeed, that 
from the very nature of the case, demonstrative evidence one way 
or the other is almost unattainable. A priori, I should be disposed 
to expect a certain amount of infertility between some of the 
extreme modifications of mankind; and still more between the 
offsprings of their intermixture. A posteriori, I cannot discover 
any satisfactory proof that such infertility exists. 

From the facts of ethnology I now turn to the theories and 
speculations of ethnologists, which have been devised to explain 
these facts, and to furnish satisfactory answers to the inquiry — 
what conditions have determined the existence of the persistent 
modifications of mankind, and have caused their distribution to be 
what it is? 

These speculations may be grouped under three heads: firstly, 
the Monogenist hypotheses; secondly, those of the Polygenists; 
•and thirdly, that which would result from a simple application of 
Darwinian principles to mankind. 

According to the Monogenists, all mankind have sprung from a 
single pair, whose multitudinous progeny spread themselves over 
the world, such as it now is, and became modified into the forms 
we meet with in the various regions of the earth, by the effect of 
the climatal and other conditions to which they were subjected. 

The advocates of this hypothesis are divisible into several 
schools. There are those who represent the most numerous, re- 
spectable, and would-be orthodox of the public, and are what 
may be called " Adamites," pure and simple. They believe that 
Adam was made out of earth somewhere in Asia, about six 
thousand years ago; that Eve was modelled from one of his ribs; 
and that the progeny of these two having been reduced to eight 
persons who were landed on the summit of Mount Ararat after an 
universal deluge, all the nations of the earth have proceeded from 
these last, have migrated to their present localities, and have be- 
come converted into Negroes, Australians, Mongolians, &c., within 
that time. Five-sixths of the public are taught this Adamitic 
Monogenism, as if it were an established truth, and believe it. I 
do not; and I am not acquainted with any man of science, or 
duly instructed person, who does. 

A second school of monogenists, not worthy of much attention, 
attempts to hold a place midway between the Adamites and a 
third division, who take up a purely scientific position, and re- 
quire to be dealt with accordingly. This third division, in fact, 
numbers in its ranks Linnaeus, Buffon, Blumenbach, Cuvier, 
Prichard, and many distinguished living ethnologists. 

These " Rational Monogenists," or, at any rate the more mod- 



142 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

em among them, hold, firstly, that the present condition of the 
earth has existed for untold ages; secondly, that, at a remote 
period, beyond the ken of Archbishop Usher, man was created, 
somewhere between the Caucasus and the Hindoo Koosh; thirdly, 
that he might have migrated thence to all parts of the inhabited 
world, seeing that none of them are unattainable from some other 
inhabited part, by men provided with only such means of transport 
as savages are known to possess and must have invented; fourthly, 
that the operation of the existing diversities of climate and other 
conditions upon people so migrating, is sufficient to account for 
all the diversities of mankind. 

Of the truth of the first of these propositions no competent 
judge now entertains any doubt. The second is more open to 
discussion; for, in these latter days, many question the special 
creation of man : and even if his special creation be granted, there 
is not a shadow of a reason why he should have been created in 
Asia rather than anywhere else. Of all the odd myths that have 
arisen in the scientific world, the " Caucasion mystery," invented 
quite innocently by Blumenbach, is the oddest. A Georgian 
woman's skull was the handsomest in his collection. Hence it 
became his model exemplar of human skulls, from which all others 
might be regarded as deviations ; and out of this, by some strange 
intellectual hocuspocus, grew up the notion that the Caucasian 
man is the prototype " Adamic " man, and his country the primi- 
tive centre of our kind. Perhaps the most curious thing of all 
is, that the said Georgian skull, after all, is not a skull of average 
form, but distinctly belongs to the brachycephalic group. 

With the third proposition I am quite disposed to agree, though 
it must be recollected that it is one thing to allow that a given 
migration is possible, and another to admit there is good reason 
to believe it has really taken place. 

But I can find no sufficient ground for accepting the fourth 
proposition; and I doubt if it would ever have obtained its gen- 
eral currency except for the circumstance that fair Europeans are 
very readily tanned and embrowned by the sun. Yet I am not 
aware that there is a particle of proof that the cutaneous change 
thus effected can become hereditary, any more than that the en- 
larged livers, which plague our countrymen of India, can be trans- 
mitted; while there is very strong evidence to the contrary. Not 
only, in fact, are there such cases as those of the English families 
in Barbadoes, who have remained for six generations unaltered in 
complexion, but which are open to the objection that they may 
have received infusions of fresh European blood; but there is the 
broad fact, that not a single indigenous Negro exists either in the 



METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 143 

great alluvial plains of tropical South America, or in the exposed 
islands of the Polynesian Archipelago, or among the populations 
of equatorial Borneo or Sumatra. No satisfactory explanation of 
these obvious difficulties has been offered by the advocates of the 
direct influences of conditions. And as for the more important 
modifications observed in the structure of the brain, and in the 
form of the skull, no one has ever pretended to show in what way 
they can be effected directly by climate. 

It is here, in fact, that the strength of the Polygenists, or 
those who maintain that men primitively arose, not from one, 
but from many stocks, lies. Show us, they say to the Monogenists, 
a single case in which the characters of a human stock have been 
essentially modified without its being demonstrable, or, at least, 
highly probable that there has been intermixture of blood with 
some foreign stock. Bring forward any instance in which a part 
of the world, formerly inhabited by one stock, is now the dwelling- 
place of another, and we will prove the change to be the result of 
migration, or of intermixture, and not of modification of char- 
acter by climatic influences. Finally, prove to us that the evi- 
dence in favour of the specific distinctness of many animals, 
admitted to be distinct species by all zoologists, is a whit better 
than that upon which we maintain the specific distinctness of 
men. 

If presenting unanswerable objections to your adversary were 
the same thing as proving your own case, the Polygenists would 
be in a fair way towards victory; but, unfortunately, as I have 
already observed, they have as yet completely failed to adduce 
satisfactory positive proof of the specific diversity of mankind. 
Like the Monogenists, the Polygenists are of several sects; some 
imagine that their assumed species of mankind were created 
where we find them — the African in Africa, and the Australian 
in Australia, along with the other animals of their distributional 
province; others conceive that each species of man has resulted 
from the modification of some antecedent species of ape — the 
American from the broad-nosed Simians of the New World, 
the African from the Troglodytic stock, the Mongolian from the 
Orangs. 

The first hypothesis is hardly likely to win much favour. The 
whole tendency of modern science is to thrust the origination of 
things further and further into the background; and the chief 
philosophical objection to Adam being, not his oneness, but the 
hypothesis of his special creation; the multiplication of that ob- 
jection tenfold is, whatever it may look, an increase, instead of a 
diminution, of the difficulties of the case. And, as to the second 



144 MAN^S PLACE IN NATURE 

alternative, it may safely be affirmed that, even if the differences 
between men are specific, they are so small, that the assumption 
of more than one primitive stock for all is altogether super- 
fluous. Surely no one can now be found to assert that any two 
stocks of mankind differ as much as a chimpanzee and an orang 
do; still less that they are as unlike as either of these is to any 
New World Simian! 

Lastly, the granting of the Polygenist premises does not, in 
the slightest degree, necessitate the Polygenist conclusion. Admit 
that Negroes and Australians, Negritos and Mongols are distinct 
species, or distinct genera, if you will, and you may yet, with per- 
fect consistency, be the strictest of Monogenists, and even be- 
lieve in Adam and Eve as the primaeval parents of all mankind. 

It is to Mr. Darwin we owe this discovery : it is he who, coming 
forward in the guise of an eclectic philosopher, presents his doc- 
trine as the key to ethnology, and as reconciling and combining 
all that is good in the Monogenistic and Polygenistic schools. It 
is true that Mr. Darwin has not, in so many words, applied his 
views to ethnology ; but even he who " runs and reads " the " Origin 
of Species " can hardly fail to do so ; and, furthermore, Mr. Wal- 
lace and M. Pouchet have recently treated of ethnological ques- 
tions from this point of view. Let me, in conclusion, add my own 
contribution to the same store. 

I assume Man to have arisen in the manner which I have dis- 
cussed elsewhere, and probably, though by no means necessarily, 
in one locality. Whether he arose singly, or a number of ex- 
amples appeared contemporaneously, is also an open question for 
the believer in the production of species by the gradual modifi- 
cation of pre-existing ones. At what epoch of the world's his- 
tory this took place, again, we have no evidence whatever. It 
may have been in the older tertiary, or earlier; but what is most 
important to remember is, that the discoveries of late years have 
proved that man inhabited Western Europe, at any rate, before 
the occurrence of those great physical changes which have given 
Europe its present aspect. And as the same evidence shows that 
man was the contemporary of animals which are now extinct, it 
is not too much to assume that his existence dates back at least as 
far as that of our present Fauna and Elora, or before the epoch 
of the drift. 

But if this be true, it is somewhat startling to reflect upon the 
prodigious changes which have taken place in the physical geog- 
raphy of this planet since man has been an occupant of it. 

During that period the greater part of the British islands, of 
Central Europe, of Northern Asia, have been submerged beneath 



METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY, 145 

the sea and raised up again. So has the great desert of Sahara, 
which occupies the major part of Northern Africa.* The Caspian 
and the Aral seas have been one, and their united waters have 
probably communicated with both the Arctic and the Mediterra- 
nean oceans. t The greater part of North America has been 
under water, and has emerged. It is highly probable that a large 
part of the Malayan Archipelago has sunk, and that its primitive 
continuity with Asia has been destroyed. Over the great Poly- 
nesian area subsidence has taken place to the extent of many 
thousands of feet — subsidence of so vast a character, in fact, 
that if a continent like Asia had once occupied the area of the 
Pacific, the peaks of its mountains would now show not more 
numerous than the islands of the Polynesian Archipelago.:{: 

What lands may have been thickly populated for untold ages, 
and subsequently have disappeared and left no sign above the 
waters, it is of course impossible for us to say; but unless we are 
to make the wholly unjustifiable assumption that no dry land 
arose elsewhere when our present dry land sank, there must be 
half-a-dozen Atlantises beneath the waves of the various oceans 
of the world. But if the regions which have undergone these 
slow and gradual, but immense alterations, were wholly or in part 
inhabited before the changes I have indicated began — and it is 
more probable that they were than that they were not — what a 
wonderfully efficient " Emigration Board " must have been at 
work all over the world long before canoes, or even rafts, were 
invented; and before men were impelled to wander by any desire 
nobler or stronger than hunger. And as these rude and primitive 
families were thrust, in the course of long series of generations, 
from land to land, impelled by encroachments of sea or marsh, or 
by severity of summer heat or winter cold, to change their posi- 
tions, what opportunities must have been offered for the play of 
natural selection, in preserving one family variation and destroy- 
ing another! 

Suppose, for example, that some families of a horde which had 
reached a land charged with the seeds of yellow fever, varied in 
the direction of woolliness of hair and darkness of skin. Then, 
if it be true that these physical characters are accompanied 
by comparative or absolute exemptions from that scourge, the 
inevitable tendency would be to the preservation and multiplica- 

[* Later investigations tend to show that only a small part of the 
Sahara has been submerged. — 1894.] 

[f Witl reference to certain reclamations that have been made a projJos 
of a speculation set forth in an essay on the Aryan Question (infrd,) , I 
draw attention to the fact that this passage was written twenty-nine 
years ago. — 1894.] 

it The occurrence of this extensive subsidence is disputed. — 1894.] 



146 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

tion of the darker and woollier families, and the elimination of 
the whiter and smoother haired. In fact, by the operation of 
causes precisely similar to those which, in the famous instance 
cited by Mr. Darwin, have given rise to a race of black pigs in 
the forests of Louisiana, a negro stock would eventually people the 
region.* Again, how often, by such physical changes, must a 
stock have been isolated from all others for innumerable genera- 
tions, and have found ample time for the hereditary hardening of 
its special peculiarities into the enduring characters of a persistent 
modification. 

Nor, if it be true that the physiological differences of species 
may be produced by variation and natural selection, as Mr. Dar- 
win supposes, would it be at all astonishing, if, in some of these 
separated stocks, the process of differentiation should have gone so 
far as to give rise to the phenomena of hybridity. In the face of 
the overwhelming evidence in favour of the unity of the origin 
of mankind afforded by anatomical considerations, satisfactory 
proof of the existence of any degree of sterility in the unions of 
members of two of the " persistent modifications " of mankind, 
might well be appealed to by Mr. Darwin as crucial evidence of 
the truth of his views regarding the origin of species in general. 

[* Mr. Pearson, in his very interesting work On ISlaiional Life and 
Character, justly dwells upon the obstacles to the existence of the white 
races within the Tropics. There is, however, this point to be considered, 
that the fevers to which the white men succumb are probably caused 
by microbes ; and that modern therapeutic science is daily teaching us 
more and more about the ways of obtaining immunity from or alleviating 
these attacks. What would become of black competition if fever " vac- 
cination " proved effectual? — 1894.] 



FIXED POINTS IN BRITISH ETHNOLOGY 147 



ON SOME FIXED POINTS IN BKITISH ETHNOLOGY. 

IN view of the many discussions to which the complicated 
problems offered by the ethnology of the British Islands have 
given rise, it may be useful to attempt to pick out, from 
amidst the confused masses of assertion and of inference, those 
propositions which appear to rest upon a secure foundation, and to 
state the evidence by which they are supported. Such is the pur- 
pose of the present paper. 

Some of these well-based propositions relate to the physical char- 
acters of the people of Britain and their neighbours; while others 
concern the languages which they spoke. I shall deal, in the 
first place, with the physical questions. 

I. Eighteen hundred years ago the population of Britain com- 
prised people of two types of cor)iplexion — the one fair, and the 
other darh. The dark people resembled the Aquitani and the 
Iheriansj the fair people were like the Belgic Gauls. 

The chief direct evidence of the truth of this proposition is the 
well-known passage of Tacitus : — 

" Ceterum Britanniam qui mortales initio coluerint, indigense an 
advecti, ut inter barbaros, parum compertum. Habitus corporum varii : 
atque ex eo argumenta : namque rutilse Caledoniam habitantium comse, 
magni artus, Germanicam originem asseverant. Silurum colorati vultus 
et torti plerumque crines, et posita contra Hispania, Iberos veteres 
trajecisse, easque sedes occupasse, fidem faciunt. Proximi Gallis et 
similes sunt ; seu durante originis vi, seu procurrentibus in diversa terris, 
positio coeli corporibus habitum dedit. In universum tamen sestimanti, 
Gallos vicinum solum occupasse, credibile est ; eorum sacra deprehendas, 
superstitionum persuasione ; sermo baud multum diversus." * 

This passage, it will be observed, contains statements as to facts, 
and certain conclusions deduced from these facts. The matters 
of fact asserted are: firstly, that the inhabitants of Britain ex- 
hibit much diversity in their physical characters; secondly, that 
the Caledonians are red-haired and large-limbed, like the Ger- 

* Tacitus Agricola, c, 11. 



148 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

mans; thirdly, that the Silures have curly hair and dark com- 
plexions, like the people of Spain; fourthly, that the British peo- 
ple nearest Gaul resemble the " Galli." 

Tacitus, therefore, states positively what the Caledonians and 
Silures were like; but the interpretation of what he says about 
the other Britons must depend upon what we learn from other 
sources as to the characters of these " Galli." Here the testi- 
mony of " divus Julius " comes in with great force and appro- 
priateness. Caesar writes : — 

" Britannise pars interior ab iis incolitur, quos natos in insula ipsi 
memoria proditum diciint : marituma pars ab iis, qui prsedse ac belli 
inferendi causa ex Belgio transierant ; qui omnes fere iis nominibus 
civitatum appellantur quibus orti ex civitatibus eo pervenerunt, et bello 
inlato ibi permanserunt atque agros colere coeperunt." * 

From these passages it is obvious that, in the opinion of Ceesar 
and Tacitus, the southern Britons resembled the northern Gauls, 
and especially the Belgse; and the evidence of Strabo is decisive 
as to the characters in which the two people resembled one an- 
other : " The men [of Britain] are taller than the Kelts, with hair 
less yellow; they are slighter in their persons."! 

The evidence adduced appears to leave no reasonable ground for 
doubting that, at the time of the Boman conquest, Britain con- 
tained people of two types, the one dark and the other fair com- 
plexioned, and that there was a certain difference between the 
latter in the north and in the south of Britain : the northern folk 
being, in the judgment of Tacitus, or, more properly, according 
to the information he had received from Agricola and others, 
more similar to the Germans than the latter. As to the distribu- 
tion of these stocks, all that is clear is, that the dark people were 
predominant in certain parts of the west of the southern half of 
Britain, while the fair stock appears to have furnished the chief 
elements of the population elsewhere. 

No ancient writer troubled himself with measuring skulls, and 
therefore there is no direct evidence as to the cranial characters 
of the fair and the dark stocks. The indirect evidence is not 
very satisfactory. The tumuli of Britain of pre-Koman date 
have yielded two extremely different forms of skull, the one broad 
and the other long; and the same variety has been observed in the 
skulls of the ancient Gauls.:}: The suggestion is obvious that the 
one form of skull may have been associated with the fair, and the 

* De Bello Gallico, v. 12. 

t The Geography of Strabo. Translated by Hamilton and Fal- 
coner, V. 5. 

% See Dr. Thurman " On the Two Principal Forms of Ancient British 
and Gaulish Skulls." 



FIXED POINTS IN BRITISH ETHNOLOGY 149 

other with the dark, complexion. But any conclusion of this kind 
is at once checked by the reflection that the extremes of long and 
short-headedness are to be met with among the fair inhabitants 
of Germany and of Scandinavia at the present day — the south- 
western Germans and the Swiss being markedly broad-headed, 
whilo' the Scandinavians are as predominantly long-headed. 

What the natives of Ireland were like at the time of the Roman 
conquest of Britain, and for centuries afterwards, we have no cer- 
tain knowledge; but the earliest trustworthy records prove the 
existence, side by side with one another, of a fair and a dark stock, 
in Ireland as in Britain. The long form of skull is predominant 
among the ancient, as among modern, Irish. 

II. The people termed Gauls, and those called Germans, hy 
the Romans, did not differ in any important physical character. 

The terms in which the ancient writers describe both Gauls and 
Germans are identical. They are always tall people, with massive 
limbs, fair skins, fierce blue eyes, and hair the colour of which 
ranges from red to yellow. Zeuss, the great authority on these 
matters, affirms broadly that no distinction in bodily feature is 
to be found between the Gauls, the Germans, and the Wends, so 
far as their characters are recorded by the old historians; and he 
proves his case by citations from a cloud of witnesses. 

An attempt has been made to show that the colour of the hair 
of the Gauls must have differed very much from that which ob- 
tained among the Germans, on the strength of the story told by 
Suetonius {Caligula, 4), that Caligula tried to pass off Gauls for 
Germans by picking out the tallest, and making then " rutilare et 
summittere comam." 

The Baron de Belloguet remarks upon this passage: 

" It was in the very north of Gaul, and near the sea, that Caligula got 
up this military comedy. And the fact proves that the Belgae were 
already sensibly different from their ancestors, whom Strabo had found 
almost identical with their brothers on the other side of the Rhine." 

But the fact recorded by Suetonius, if fact it be, proves noth- 
ing; for the Germans themselves were in the habit of reddening 
their hair. Ammianus Marcellinus* tells how, in the year 367 
A. D., the Roman commander, Jovinus, surprised a body of Ale- 
manni near the town now called Charpeigne, in the valley of the 
Moselle; and how the Roman soldiers, as, concealed by the thick 
wood, they stole upon their unsuspecting enemies, saw that some 
were bathing and others " comas rutilantes ex more." More than 

* Bes Gestw^ xxvii. 



150 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

two centuries earlier Pliny gives indirect evidence to the same 
effect when he says of soap: — 

" Galliarum hoc inventum rutilandis capillis . . . apud Germanos 
majore in usu viris quam foeminis."* 

Here we have a writer who flourished not very long after the 
date of the Caligula story, telling us that the Gauls invented soap 
for the purpose of doing that which, according to Suetonius, Cal- 
igula forced them to do. And, further, the combined and inde- 
pendent testimony of Pliny and Ammianus assures us that the 
Germans were as much in the habit of reddening their hair as 
the Gauls. As to De Belloguet's supposition that, even in Cal- 
igula's time, the Gauls had become darker than their ancestors 
were, it is directly contradicted by Ammianus Marcellinus, who 
knew the Gauls well. " Celsioris staturse et candidi poene Galli 
sunt omnes, et rutili, luminumque torvitate terribiles," is his 
description; and it would fit the Gauls who sacked Home. 

III. In none of the invasions of Britain which have tahen place 
since the Roman dominion, has any other type of man been in- 
troduced than one or other of the two which existed during that 
dominion. 

The North Germans, who effected what is commonly called the 
Saxon conquest of Britain, were, most assuredly, a fair, yellow, 
or red-haired, blue-eyed, long-skulled people. So were the Danes 
and the Norsemen who followed them; though it is very possible 
that the active slave trade which went on, and the intercourse 
with Ireland, may have introduced a certain admixture of the 
dark stock into both Denmark and Norway. The Norman con- 
quest brought in new ethnological elements, the precise value of 
which cannot be estimated with exactness ; but as to their quality, 
there can be no question, inasmuch as even the wide area from 
which William drew his followers could yield him nothing but the 
fair and the dark types of men, already present in Britain. But 
whether the Norman settlers, on the whole, strengthened the fair 
or the dark element, is a problem, the elements of the solution of 
which are not attainable. 

I am unable to discover any grounds for believing that a Lapp 
element has ever entered into the population of these islands. 
So far as the physical evidence goes, it is perfectly consistent with 
the hypothesis that the only constituent stock of that population, 
now, or at any other period about which we have evidence, are the 
dark whites, whom I have proposed to call " Melanochroi," and the 
fair whites, or " Xanthochroi." 

* Historia Naturalis, xxviii. 51. 



FIXED POINTS IN BRITISH ETHNOLOGY 151 

lY. The XantliGchroi and the Melanochroi of Britain are, 
speaking hroadly, distributed, at present, as they were in the time 
of Tacitus; and their representatives on the continent of Europe 
have the same general distribution as at the earliest period of 
which we have any record. 

At the present day, and notwithstanding the extensive inter- 
mixture effected by the movements consequent on civilization and 
on political changes, there is a predominance of dark men in the 
west, and of fair men in the east and north, of Britain. At the 
present day, as from the earliest times, the predominant constit- 
uents of the riverain population of the North Sea and the eastern 
half of the British Channel, are fair men. The fair stock contin- 
ues in force through Central Europe, until it is lost in Central 
Asia. Offshoots of this stock extend into Spain, Italy, and 
Northern India, and by way of Syria and North Africa, to the 
Canary Islands. They were known in very early times to the 
Chinese, and in still earlier to the ancient Egyptians, as frontier 
tribes. The Thracians were notorious for their fair hair and blue 
eyes many centuries before our era. 

On the other hand, the dark stock predominates in Southern 
and Western France, in Spain, along the Ligurian shore, and in 
Western and Southern Italy; in Greece, Asia, Syria, and North 
Africa; in Arabia, Persia, Afghanistan, and Hindostan, shading 
gradually, through all stages of darkening, into the type of the 
modern Egyptian, or of the wild Hill-man of the Dekkan. Nor 
is there any record of the existence of a different population in all 
these countries. 

The extreme north of Europe, and the northern part of Western 
Asia, are at present occupied by a Mongoloid stock, and, in the 
absence of evidence to the contrary, may be assumed to have been 
so peopled from a very remote epoch. But, as I have said, I can 
find no evidence that this stock ever took part in peopling Britain. 
Of the three great stocks of mankind which extend from the 
western coast of the great Eurasiatic continent to its southern and 
eastern shores, the Mongoloids occupy a vast triangle, the base of 
which is the whole of Eastern Asia, while its apex lies in Lap- 
land. The Melanochroi, on the other hand, may be represented as 
a broad band stretching from Ireland to Hindostan; while the 
Xanthochroic area lies between the two, thins out, so to speak, at 
either end, and mingles, at its margins, with both its neighbours. 

Such is a brief and summary statement of what I believe to be 
the chief facts relating to the physical ethnology of the people of 
Britain. The conclusions which I draw from these and other 
facts are — (1) That the Melanochroi and the Xanthochroi are 



152 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

two separate races in the biological sense of the word race; (2) 
That they have had the same general distribution as at present 
from the earliest times of which any record exists on the con- 
tinent of Europe; (3) That the population of the British Islands 
is derived from them, and from them only. 

The people of Europe, however, owe their national names, not 
to their physical characteristics, but to their languages, or to their 
political relations; which, it is plain, need not have the slightest 
relation to these characteristics. 

Thus, it is quite certain that, in Caesar's time, Gaul was divided 
politically into three nationalities — the Belgse, the Celtse, and the 
Aquitani; and that the last were very widely different, both in 
language and in physical characteristics, from the two former. 
The Belgse and the Celtse, on the other hand, differed compara- 
tively little either in physique or in language. On the former 
point there is the distinct testimony of Strabo; as to the latter, 
St. Jerome states that the " Galatians had almost the same lan- 
guage as the Treviri." Now, the Galatians were emigrant Volcse 
Tectosages, and therefore, Celtse; while the Treviri were Belgse.* 

At the present day, the physical characters of the people of 
Belgic Gaul remain distinct from those of the people of Aqui- 
taine, notwithstanding the immense changes which have taken 
place since Caesar's time; but Belgae, Celtse, and Aquitani (all but 
a mere fraction of the last two, represented by the Basques and 
the Bretons) are fused into one nationality, " le peuple Erangais." 
But they have adopted the language of one set of invaders, and the 
name of another; their original names and languages have almost 
disappeared. Suppose that the Erench language remained as the 
sole evidence of the existence of the population of Gaul, would the 
keenest philologer arrive at any other conclusion than that this 
population was essentially and fundamentally a " Latin " race, 
which had had some communication with Celts and Teutons? 
Would he so much as suspect the former existence of the Aquitani ? 

Community of language testifies to close contact between the 
people who speak the language, but to nothing else; philology has 
absolutely nothing to do with ethnology, except so far as it sug- 
gests the existence or the absence of such contact. The contrary 
assumption, that language is a test of race, has introduced the 
utmost confusion into ethnological speculation, and has nowhere 
worked greater scientific and practical mischief than in the eth- 
nology of the British Islands. 

What is known, for certain, about the languages spoken in these 
islands and their affinities may, I believe, be summed up as 
follows : — 

[* This proposition is disputed. — 1894.] 



FIXED POINTS IN BRITISH ETHNOLOGY 153 

I. At the time of the Roman conquest, one language, the Celtic, 
under two principal dialectical divisions, the Cymric and the 
Gaelic, was spoken throughout the British Islands, Cymric was 
spoken in Britain, Gaelic^ in Ireland. 

If a language allied to Basque had in earlier times been spoken 
in the British Islands, there is no evidence that any Euskarian- 
speaking people remained at the time of the Roman conquest. 
The dark and the fair population of Britain alike spoke Celtic 
tongues, and therefore the name " Celt " is as applicable to the one 
as to the other. 

What was spoken in Ireland can only be surmised by reasoning 
from the knowledge of later times ; but there seems to be no doubt 
that it was Gaelic. 

II. The Belgce and the Celtce, with the offshoots of the latter in 
Asia Minor, spoke dialects of the Cymric division of Celtic. 

The evidence of this proposition lies in the statement of St. 
Jerome before cited; in the similarity of the names of places in 
Belgic Gaul and in Britain; and in the direct comparison of sun- 
dry ancient Gaulish and Belgic words which have been preserved, 
with the existing Cymric dialects, for which I must refer to the 
learned work of Brandes. 

Formerly, as at the present day, the Cymric dialects of Celtic 
were spoken by both the fair and the dark stocks. 

III. There is no record of Gaelic heing spoken anywhere save 
in Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man. 

This appears to be the final result of the long discussions which 
have taken place on this much-debated question. As is the case 
with the- Cymric dialects, Gaelic is now spoken by both dark and 
fair stocks. 

IV. When the Teutonic languages first hecame known, they 
were spoken onlyj- hy Xanthochroi, that is to say, hy the Germans, 
the Scandinavians, and Goths. And they were imported hy Xan- 
thochroi into Gaul and into Britain. 

In Gaul, the imported Teutonic dialect has been completely 
overpowered by the more or less modified Latin, which it found 
already in possession; and what Teutonic blood there may be in 
modern Frenchmen is not adequately represented in their lan- 
guage. In Britain, on the contrary, the Teutonic dialects have 
overpowered the pre-existing forms of speech, and the people are 

[* I have been told that the terms " Cymric " and *' Gaelic " are an- 
tiquated and improper. The reader will please substitute Celtic dialect 
A and Celtic dialect B for them, and consult, on this subject, especially 
with regard to proposition III., Professor Rhys' Early Britain.^- 1894.] 

[t"Only" is too stron;^ a word, as there were doubtless some Melan- 
ochroi among the Teutonic tribes. — 1891.] 



154 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

vastly less " Teutonic " than their language. Whatever may have 
been the extent to which the Celtic-speaking population of the 
eastern half of Britain was trodden out and supplanted by the 
Teutonic-speaking Saxons and Danes, it is quite certain that no 
considerable displacement of the Celtic-speaking people occurred 
in Cornwall, Wales, or* the Highlands of Scotland ; and that noth- 
ing approaching to the extinction of that people took place in 
Devonshire, Somerset, or the western moiety of Britain generally. 
Nevertheless, the fundamentally Teutonic English language is 
now spoken throughout Britain, except by an insignificant fraction 
of the population in Wales and the Western Highlands. But it 
is obvious that this fact affords not the slightest justification for 
the common practice of speaking of the present inhabitants of 
Britain as an " Anglo-Saxon " race. It is, in fact, just as absurd 
as the habit of talking of the French people as a " Latin " race, 
because they speak a language which is, in the main, derived from 
Latin. And the absurdity becomes the more patent when those 
who have no hesitation in calling a Devonshire man, or a Cornish 
man, an " Anglo-Saxon," would think it ridiculous to call a Tip- 
perary man by the same title, though he and his forefathers may 
have spoken English for as long a time as the Cornish man. 

Ireland, at the earliest period of which we have any knowledge, 
contained, like Britain, a dark and fair stock, which there is every 
reason to believe, were identical with the dark and the fair stocks 
of Britain. When the Irish first became known they spoke a Gaelic 
dialect, and though, for many centuries, Scandinavians made con- 
tinual incursions upon, and settlements among them, the Teutonic 
languages made no more way among the Irish than they did 
among the French. How much Scandinavian blood was intro- 
duced there is no evidence to show. But after the conquest of 
Ireland by Henry II., the English people, consisting in part of the 
descendants of Cymric speakers, and in part of the descendants 
of Teutonic speakers, made good their footing in the eastern 
half of the island, as the Saxons and Danes made good theirs 
in England; and did their best to complete the parallel by at- 
tempting the extirpation of the Gaelic-speaking Irish. And they 
succeeded to a considerable extent; a large part of Eastern 
Ireland is now peopled by men who are substantially English by 
descent, and the English language has spread over the land far 
beyond the limits of English blood. 

Ethnologically, the Irish people were originally, like the people 
of Britain, a mixture of Melanochroi and Xanthochroi. They 
resembled the Britons in speaking a Celtic tongue; but it was a 
Gaelic and not a Cymric form of the Celtic language. Ireland 



FIXED POINTS IN BRITISH ETHNOLOGY 155 

was untouched by the Roman conquest, nor do the Saxons seem 
to have had any influence upon her destinies, but the Danes and 
Norsemen poured in a contingent of Teutonism, which has been 
largely supplemented by English and Scotch efforts. 

What, then, is the value of the ethnological difference between 
the Englishman of the western half of England and the Irishman 
of the eastern half of Ireland? For what reason does the one de- 
serve the name of a " Celt," and not the other ? And further, if 
we turn to the inhabitants of the western half of Ireland, why 
should the term " Celts " be applied to them more than to the in- 
habitants of Cornwall? And if the name is applicable to one 
as justly as to the other, why should not intelligence, perseverance, 
thrift, industry, sobriety, respect for law, be admitted to be Celtic 
virtues? And why should we not seek for the cause of their 
absence in something else than the idle pretext of " Celtic blood " ? 

I have been unable to meet with any answers to these questions. 

V. The Celtic and the Teutonic dialects are members of the 
same great Aryan family of languages; hut there is evidence to 
show that a non-Aryan language was at one time spoken over a 
large extent of the area occupied hy Melanochroi in Europe. 

The non- Aryan language here referred to is the Euskarian, now 
spoken only by the Basques, but which seems in earlier times to 
have been the language of the Aquitanians and Spaniards, and 
may possibly have extended much further to the East. Whether 
it has any connection with the Ligurian and Oscan dialects are 
questions upon which, of course, I do not presume to offer any 
opinion. But it is important to remark that it is a language the 
area of which has gradually diminished without any corre- 
sponding extirpation of the people who primitively spoke it; so 
that the people of Spain and of Aquitaine at the present day 
must be largely " Euskarian " by descent in just the same sense 
as the Cornish men are " Celtic " by descent. 

Such seem to me to be the main facts respecting the ethnology 
of the British Islands and of Western Europe, which may be said 
to be fairly established. The hypothesis by which I think (with 
De Belloguet and Thurman) the facts may best be explained is 
this : In very remote times Western Europe and the British 
islands were inhabited by the dark stock, or the Melanochroi, alone, 
and these Melanochroi spoke dialects allied to the Euskarian. The 
Xanthochroi, spreading over the great Eurasiatic plains west- 
ward, and speaking Aryan dialects, gradually invaded the terri- 
tories of the Melanochroi. The Xanthochroi, who thus came into 
contact with the Western Melanochroi, spoke a Celtic language, 
and that Celtic language, whether Cymric or Gaelic, spread 



156 MAN^S PLACE IN NATURE 

over the Melanochroi far beyond the limits of intermixture of 
blood, supplanting Euskarian, just as English and French 
have supplanted Celtic. Even as early as Caesar's time, I 
suppose that the Euskarian was everywhere, except in Spain 
and in Aquitaine, replaced by "Celtic, and thus the Celtic 
speakers were no longer of one ethnological stock, but of 
two. Both in Western Europe and in England a third 
wave of language — in the one case Latin, in the other Teutonic 
— has spread over the same area. In Western Europe, it has left 
a fragment of the primary Euskarian in one corner of the coun- 
try, and a fragment of the secondary Celtic in another. In the 
British islands, only outlying pools of the secondary linguistic 
wave remain in Wales, the Highlands, Ireland, and the Isle of 
Man, If this hypothesis is a sound one, it follows that the name 
of Celtic is not properly applicable to the Melanochroic or dark 
stock of Europe. They are merely, so to speak, secondary Celts. 
The primary and aboriginal Celtic-speaking people are Xantho- 
chroi — the typical Gauls of the ancient writers, and the close 
allies by blood, customs, and language, of the Germans. 



ARYAN QUESTION AND PREHISTORIC MAN 157 



THE AEYAN QUESTION AND PKEHISTORIC MAN. 

THE rapid increase of natural knowledge, which is the chief 
characteristic of our age, is effected in various ways. Thai 
main army of science moves to the conquest of new worlds 
slowly and surely, nor ever cedes an inch of the territory gained. 
But the advance is covered and facilitated by the ceaseless activity 
of clouds of light troops provided with a weapon — always efficient, 
if not always an arm of precision — the scientific imagination. It 
is the business of these enfants perdus of science to make raids 
into the realm of ignorance wherever they see, or think they see, 
a chance; and cheerfully to accept defeat, or it may be annihila- 
tion, as the reward of error. Unfortunately, the public, which 
watches the progress of the campaign, too often mistakes a dashing 
incursion of the Uhlans for a forward movement of the main 
body; fondly imagining that the strategic movement to the rear, 
which occasionally follows, indicates a battle lost by science. And 
it must be confessed that the error is too often justified by the 
eiffects of the irrepressible tendency which men of science share 
with all other sorts of men known to me, to be impatient of that 
most wholesome state of mind — suspended judgment; to assume 
the objective truth of speculations which, from the nature of the 
evidence in their favour, can have no claim to be more than 
working hypotheses. 

The history of the " Aryan question " affords a striking illus- 
tration of these general remarks. 

About a century ago, Sir William Jones pointed out the close 
alliance of the chief European languages with Sanskrit and its 
derivative dialects now spoken in India. Brilliant and laborious 
philologists, in long succession, enlarged and strengthened this 
position, until the truth that Sanskrit, Zend, Armenian, Greek, 
Latin, Lithuanian, Slavonian, German, Celtic, and so on, stand to 
one another in the relation of descendants from a common stock, 
became firmly established, and thenceforward formed part of the 
permanent acquisitions of science. Moreover, the term " Aryan " 



158 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

is very generally, if not universally, accepted as a name for the 
group of languages thus allied. Hence, when one speaks of 
" Aryan languages," no hypothetical assumptions are involved. 
It is a matter of fact that such languages exist, that they present 
certain substantial and formal relations, and that convention sanc- 
tions the name applied to them. But the close connection of these 
"widely differentiated languages remains altogether inexplicable, 
unless it is admitted that they are modifications of an original 
relatively undifferentiated tongue; just as the intimate affinities 
of the Romance languages — French, Italian, Spanish, and the 
rest — would be incomprehensible if there were no Latin. The 
original or " primitive Aryan " tongue, thus postulated, unfor- 
tunately no longer exists. It is a hypothetical entity, which cor- 
responds with the " primitive stock " of generic and higher groups 
among plants and animals; and the acknowledgment of its for- 
mer existence, and of the process of evolution which has brought 
about the present state of things philological, is forced upon us 
by deductive reasoning of similar cogency to that employed about 
things biological. 

Thus, the former existence of a body of relatively uniform 
dialects, which may be called primitive Aryan, may be added to 
the stock of definitely acquired truths. But it is obvious that, in 
the absence of writing or of phonographs, the existence of a lan- 
guage implies that of speakers. If there were primitive Aryan 
dialects, there must have been primitive Aryan people who used 
them; and those people must have resided somewhere or other on 
the earth's surface. Hence philology, without stepping beyond 
its legitimate bounds and keeping speculation within the limits 
of bare necessity, arrives not only at the conceptions of Aryan 
languages and of a primitive Aryan language; but of a primitive 
Aryan people and of a primitive Aryan home, or country occupied 
by them. 

But where was this home of the Aryans? When the labours 
of modern philologists began, Sanskrit was the most archaic of 
all the Aryan languages known to them. It appeared to present 
the qualifications required in the parental or primitive Aryan. 
Brilliant Uhlans made a charge at this opening. The scientific 
imagination seated the primitive Aryans in the valley of the 
Ganges; and showed, as in a vision, the successive columns, 
guided by enterprising Brahmins, which set out thence to people 
the regions of the western world with Greeks and Celts and 
Germans. But the progress of philology itself sufficed to show 
that this Balaclava charge, however magnificent, was not profita- 
ble warfare. The internal evidence of the Vedas proved that their 



ARYAN QUESTION AND PREHISTORIC MAN 159 

composers had not reached the Ganges. On the other hand, the 
comparison of Zend with Sanskrit left no alternative open to the 
assumption that these languages were modification^ of an original 
Indo-Iranian tongue, spoken by a people of whom the Aryans of 
India and those of Persia were offshoots, and who could therefore 
be hardly lodged elsewhere than on the frontiers of both Persia 
and India — that is to say, somewhere in the region which is at 
present known under the names of Turkestan, Afghanistan, and 
Kafiristan. Thus far, it can hardly be doubted that we are well 
within the ground of which science has taken enduring pos- 
session. But the Uhlans were not content to remain within the 
lines of this surely-won position. For some reason, which is not 
quite clear to me, they thought fit to restrict the home of the prim- 
itive Aryans to a particular part of the region in question; to 
lodge them amidst the bleak heights of the long range of the 
Hindoo Koosh and on the inhospitable plateau of Pamir. From 
their hives in these secluded valleys and wind-swept wastes, suc- 
cessive swarms of Celts and Greco-Latins, Teutons, and Slavs, 
were thrown off to settle, after long wanderings, in distant Eu- 
rope. The Hindoo-Koosh-Pamir theory, once enunciated, grad- 
ually hardened into a sort of dogma; and there have not been 
wanting theorists, who laid down the routes of the successive 
bands of emigrants with as much confidence as if they had access 
to the records of the ofiice of a primitive Aryan Quartermaster- 
General. It is really singular to observe the deference which has 
been shown, and is yet sometimes shown, to a speculation which 
can, at best, claim to be regarded as nothing better than a some- 
what risky working hypothesis. 

Forty years ago the credit of the Hindoo-Koosh-Pamir theory 
had risen almost to that of an axiom. The first person to instill 
doubt of its value into my mind was the late Eobert Gordon 
Latham, a man of great learning and singular originality, whose 
attacks upon the Hindoo-Kooshite doctrine could scarcely have 
failed as completely as they did, if his great powers had been 
l)estowed upon making his books not only worthy of being read, 
but readable. The impression left upon my mind, at that time, 
by various conversations about the " Sarmatian hypothesis," which 
my friend wished to substitute for the Hindoo-Koosh-Pamir spec- 
ulation, was that the one and the other rested pretty much upon 
a like foundation of guess-work. That there was no sufficient 
reason for planting the primitive Aryans in the Hindoo Koosh, or 
in Pamir, seemed plain enough; but that there was little better 
ground, on the evidence then adduced, for settling them in the 
region at present occupied by Western Kussia, or Podolia, ap- 



160 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

peared to me to be not less plain. The most I thought Latham 
proved was, that the Aryan people of Indo-Iranian speech were 
just as likely to have come from Europe, as the Aryan people of 
Greek, or Teutonic, or Celtic speech from Asia. Of late years, 
Latham's views, so long neglected, or mentioned merely as an ex- 
ample of insular eccentricity, have been taken up and advocated 
with much ability in Germany as well as in this country — prin- 
cipally by philologists. Indeed, the glory of Hindoo-Koosh-Pamir 
seems altogether to have departed. Professor Max Miiller, to 
whom Aryan philology owes so much, will not say more now, than 
that he holds by the conviction that the seat of the primitive 
Aryans was " somewhere in Asia." Dr. Schrader sums up in 
favor of European Russia; while Herr Penka would have us trans- 
plant the home of the primitive Aryans from Pamir in the far 
east to the Scandinavian peninsula in the far west. 

I must refer those who desire to acquaint themselves with the 
philological arguments on which these conclusions are based to 
the recently published works of Dr. Schrader and Canon Taylor;* 
and to Penka's " Die Herkunft der Arier," which, in spite of the 
strong spice of the Uhlan which runs through it, I have found ex- 
tremely well worth study. I do not pretend to be able to look at 
the Aryan question under any but the biological aspect; to which 
I now turn. 

Any biologist who studies the history of the Aryan question, 
and, taking the philological facts on trust, regards it exclusively 
from the point of view of anthropology, will observe that, very 
early, the purely biological conception of " race " illegitimately 
mixed itself up with the ideas derived from pure philology. It is 
quite proper to speak of Aryan " people," because, as we have seen, 
the existence of the language implies that of a people who speak 
it; it might be equally permissible to call Latin people all those 
who speak Romance dialects. But, just as the application of the 
term Latin " race " to the divers people who speak Romance lan- 
guages, at the present day, is none the less absurd because it is 
common; so, it is quite possible, that it may be equally wrong 
to call the people who spoke the primitive Aryan dialects and in- 
habited the primitive home, the Aryan race. " Aryan " is properly 
a term of classification used in philology. " Race " is the name of 
the sub-division of one of those groups of living things which are 
called " species " in the technical language of Zoology and Botany ; 
and the term connotes the possession of characters distinct from 

* Schrader, Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan Peoples. Translated 
by F. B. Jevons, M.A., 1890. Taylor, The Origin of the Aryans, 1890. 



ARYAN QUESTION AND PREHISTORIC MAN 161 

those of the other members of the species, which have a strong tend- 
ency to appear in the progeny of all members of the races. Such 
race-characters may be either bodily or mental, though in practice, 
the latter, as less easy of observation and definition, can rarely be 
taken into account. Language is rooted half in the bodily and 
half in the mental nature of man. The vocal sounds which form 
the raw materials of language could not be produced without a 
peculiar conformation of the organs of speech; the enunciation 
of duly accented syllables would be impossible without the nicest 
co-ordination of the action of the muscles which move these 
organs; and such co-ordination depends on the mechanism of 
certain portions of the nervous system. It is therefore conceiva- 
ble that the structure of this highly complex speaking apparatus 
should determine a man's linguistic potentiality; that is to say, 
should enable him to use a language of one class and not of an- 
other. It is further conceivable that a particular linguistic po- 
tentiality should be inherited and become as good a race mark as 
any other. As a matter of fact, it is not proven that the linguistic 
potentialities of all men are the same. It is afiirmed, for example, 
that, in the United States, the enunciation and the tirnbre of the 
voice of an American-born negro, however thoroughly he may have 
learned English, can be readily distinguished from that of a white 
man. But, even admitting that differences may obtain among the 
various races of men, to this extent, I do not think that there is 
any good ground for the supposition that an infant of any race 
would be unable to learn, and to use with ease, the language of 
any other race of men among whom it might be brought up. His- 
tory abundantly proves the transmission of languages from some 
races to others ; and there is no evidence, that I know of, to show 
that any race is incapable of substituting a foreign idiom for its 
native tongue. 

From these considerations it follows that community of lan- 
guage is no proof of unity of race, is not even presumptive evi- 
dence of racial identity.* All that it does prove is that, at some 
time or other, free and prolonged intercourse has taken place be- 

1 

♦Canon Taylor (Origin of the Aryans, p. 31) states that " Cuno 
was the first to insist on what is now looked on as^ an axiom 
in ethnology ■ — that race is not co-extensive with language," in a work 
published in 1871. I may be permitted to quote a passage from a lecture 
delivered on the 9th of January, 1870, which brought me into a great 
deal of trouble. " Physical, mental, and moral peculiarities go with 
blood and not with language. In the United States the negroes have 
spoken English for generations : but no one on that ground would call 
them Englishmen, or expect them to differ physically, mentally, or 
morally from other negroes." — Pall Mall Gazette, Jan. 10, 1870. But 
the " axiom in ethnology " had been implied, if not enunciated, before my 
time; for example, by Desmoulins in 1826, 



162 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

tween the speakers of the same language. Philology, therefore, 
while it may have a perfect right to postulate the existence of a 
primitive Aryan " people," has no business to substitute " race " 
for " people." The speakers of primitive Aryan may have been a 
mixture of two or more races, just as are the speakers of English 
and of French, at the present time. 

The older philological ethnologists felt the difficulty which arose 
out of their identification of linguistic with racial affinity, but 
were not dismayed by it. Strong in the prestige of their great 
discovery of the unity of the Aryan tongues, they were quite pre- 
pared to make the philological and the biological categories fit, 
by the exercise of a little pressure on that about which they knew 
less. And their judgment was often unconsciously warped by 
strong monogenistic proclivities, which, at bottom, however re- 
spectable and philanthropic their origin, had nothing to do with 
science. So the patent fact that men of Aryan speech presented 
widely diverse racial characters was explained away by maintaining 
that the physical differentiation was post- Aryan; to put it broadly, 
that the Aryans in Hindoo-Koosh-Pamir were truly of one race; 
but that, while one colony, subjected to the sweltering heat of the 
Gangetic plains, had fined down and darkened into the Bengalee, 
another had bleached and shot up, under the cool and misty skies 
of the north, into the semblance of Pomeranian Grenadiers; or 
of blue-eyed, fair-skinned, six-foot Scotch Highlanders. I do not 
know that any of the Uhlans who fought so vigorously under this 
flag are left now. I doubt if any one is prepared to say that he 
believes that the influence of external conditions, alone, accounts 
for the wide physical differences between Englishmen and Benga- 
lese. So far as India is concerned, the internal evidence of the 
old literature sufficiently proves that the Aryan invaders were 
" white " men. It is hardly to be doubted that they intermixed 
with the dark Dravidian aborigines; and that the high-caste Hin- 
doos are what they are in virtue of the Aryan blood which they 
have inherited,* and of the selective influence of their surround- 
ings operating on the mixture. 

* I am unable to discover good grounds for the severity of the criticism, 
in the name of " the anthropologists," with which Professor Max 
Miiller's assertion that the same blood runs in the veins of Engiis^h 
soldiers *' as in the veins of the dark Bengalese," and that there is " a 
legitimate relationship between Hindoo, Greek, and Teuton," has been 
visited. So far as I know anything about anthropology, I should say 
that these statements may be correct literally, and probably are so 
substantially. I do not know of any good reason for the physical differ- 
ences between a high-caste Hindoo and a Dravidian, except the Aryan 
blood in the veins of the former; and the strength of the infusion is 
probably quite as great in some Hindoos as in some English soldiers. 



ARYAN QUESTION AND PREHISTORIC MAN 163 

The assumption that, as there must have been a primitive Aryan 
people, in the philological sense, so that people must have con- 
stituted a race in the biological sense, is pretty generally made in 
modern discussions of the Aryan problem. But whether the men 
of the primitive Aryan race were blonds or brunets, whether they 
had long or round heads, were tall or were short, are hotly debated 
questions into the discussion of which considerations quite foreign 
to science are sometimes imported. The combination of swarthi- 
ness with stature above the average and a long skull, confer upon 
me the serene impartiality of a mongrel; and, having given this 
pledge of fair dealing, I proceed to state the case for the hypothe- 
sis I am inclined to adopt. In doing so, I am aware that I de- 
liberately take the shilling of the recruiting-sergeant of the Light 
Brigade, and I warn all and sundry that such is the case. 

Looking at the discussions which have taken place from a purely 
anthropological point of view, the first point which has struck me 
is that the problem is far more complicated and difficult than 
many of the disputants appear to imagine; and the second, that 
the data upon which we have to go are grievously insufficient in 
extent and in precision. Our historical records cover such an in- 
finitesimally small extent of the past life of humanity, that we 
obtain little help from them. Even so late as 1500 B. C.^, northern 
Eurasia lies in historical darkness, except for such glimmer of 
light as may be thrown here and there by the literatures of Egypt 
and of Babylonia. Yet, at that time, it is probable that Sanskrit, 
Zend, and Greek, to say nothing of other Aryan tongues, had long 
been differentiated from primitive Aryan. Even a thousand years 
later, little enough accurate information is to be had about the 
racial characters of the European and Asiatic tribes known to the 
Greeks. We are thrown upon such resources as archaeology and 
human palaeontology have to offer, and notwithstanding the re- 
markable progress made of late years, they are still meagre. 
Nevertheless, it strikes me that, from the purely anthropological 
side, there is a good deal to be said in favour of the two propo- 
sitions maintained by the new school of philologists; first, that 
the people who spoke " primitive Aryan " were a distinct and well- 
marked race of mankind; and, secondly, that the area of the dis- 
tribution of this race, in primaeval times, lay in Europe, rather 
than in Asia. 

Eor the last two thousand years, at least, the southern half of 
Scandinavia and the opposite or southern shores of the Baltic 
have been occupied by a race of mankind possessed of very definite 
characters. Typical specimens have tall and massive frames, fair 



164 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

complexions, blue eyes, and yellow or reddish hair — that is to 
say, they are pronounced blonds. Their skulls are long, in the 
sense that the breadth is usually less, often much less, than four- 
fifths of the length, and they are usually tolerably high. But in 
this last respect they vary. Men of this blond, long-headed race 
abound from eastern Prussia to northern Belgium; they are met 
with in northern France and are common in some parts of our 
own islands. The people of Teutonic speech, Goths, Saxons, Ale- 
manni, and Franl^s, who poured forth out of the regions bordering 
the North Sea and the Baltic, to the destruction of the Homan 
Empire, were men of this race; and the accounts of the ancient 
historians of the incursions of the Gauls into Italy and Greece, 
between the fifth and the second centuries B. c, leave little doubt 
that their hordes were largely, if not wholly, composed of similar 
men. The contents of numerous interments in southern Scan- 
dinavia prove that, as far back as archaeology takes us into the so- 
called neolithic age, the great majority of the inhabitants had the 
same stature and cranial peculiarities as at present, though their 
bony fabric bears marks of somewhat greater ruggedness and 
savagery. There is no evidence that the country was occupied 
by men before the advent of these tall, blond long-heads. But 
there is proof of the presence, along with the latter, of a small 
percentage of people with broad skulls; skulls, that is, the breadth 
of which is more, often very much more, than four-fifths of the 
length. 

At the present day, in whatever direction we travel inland from 
the continental area occupied by the blond long-heads, whether 
south-west into central France; south, through the Walloon prov- 
inces of Belgium into eastern France; into Switzerland, South 
Germany, and the Tyrol; or south-east, into Poland and Russia; 
or north, into Finland and Lapland, broad-heads make their ap- 
pearance, in force, among the long-heads. And, eventually, we 
find ourselves among people who are as regularly broad-headed as 
the Swedes and North Germans are long-headed. As a general 
rule, in France, Belgium, Switzerland, and South Germany, the 
increase in the proportion of broad skulls is accompanied by the- 
appearance of a larger and larger proportion of men of brunet 
complexion and of a lower stature; until, in central France and 
thence eastwards, through the Cevennes and the Alps of Dau- 
phiny. Savoy, and Piedmont, to the western plains of North Italy, 
the tall hlond long-heads* practically disappear, and are replaced 

* I roay plead the precedent of the good English words " block-head '* 
and " thick-head " for " broad-head " and " long-head," but I cannot say 
that they are elegant. I might have employed the technical terms 



ARYAN QUESTION AND PREHISTORIC MAN 165 

by short hrunet hroad-heads. The ordinary Savoyard may be de- 
scribed in terms the converse of those which apply to the ordinary 
Swede. He is short, swarthy, dark-eyed, dark-haired, and his 
skull is very broad. Between the two extreme types, the one 
seated on the shores of the North Sea and the Baltic, and the other 
on those of the Mediterranean, there are all sorts of intermediate 
forms, in which breadth of skull may be found in tall and in short 
blond men, and in tall brunet men. 

There is much reason to believe that the brunet broad-heads, 
now met with in central France and in the west central European 
highlands, have inhabited the same region, not only throughout 
the historical period, but long before it commenced; and it is 
probable that their area of occupation was formerly more exten- 
sive. For, if we leave aside the comparatively late incursions of 
the Asiatic races, the centre of eruption of the invaders of the 
southern m.oiety of Europe has been situated in the north and west. 
In the case of the Teutonic inroads upon the Empire of Home, 
it undoubtedly lay in the area now occupied by the blond long- 
heads; and, in that of the antecedent Gaulish invasions, the phys- 
ical characters ascribed to the leading tribes point to the same 
conclusion. Whatever the causes which led to the breaking out 
of bounds of the blond long-heads, in mass, at particular epochs, 
the natural increase in numbers of a vigorous and fertile race 
must always have impelled them to press upon their neighbours, 
and thereby afiord abundant occasions for intermixture. If, at 
any given pre-historic time, we suppose the lowlands verging on 
the Baltic and the North Sea to have been inhabited by pure blond 
long-heads, while the central highlands were occupied by pure 
brunet short-heads, the two would certainly meet and intermix in 
course of time, in spite of the vast belt of dense forest which ex- 
tended, almost uninterruptedly, from the Carpathians to the Ar- 
dennes; and the result would be such an irregular gradation of 
the one type into the other as we do, in fact, meet with. 

On the south-east, east, and north-east, throughout what was 
once the kingdom of Poland, and in Finland, the preponderance of 
broad-heads goes along with a wide prevalence of blond com- 
plexion and of good stature. In the extreme north, on the other 

brachycephali and dolichocephali. But it cannot be said that they are 
much more graceful; and, moreover, they are sometimes employed in 
senses different from that which I have given in the definition of broad- 
heads and long-heads. The cephalic index is a number which expresses 
the relation of the breadth to the length of a skull, taking the latter 
as 100. Therefore " broad-heads " have the cephalic index above 80 and 
" long-heads " have it below 80. The physiological value of the difference 
is unknown; its morphological value depends upon the observed fact of 
the constancy of the occurrence of either long skulls or broad skulls 
among large bodies of mankind. 



166 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

hand, marked broad-headedness is combined witb low stature, 
swarthiness, and more or less strongly Mongolian features, in the 
Lapps. And it is to be observed that this type prevails increas- 
ingly to the eastward, among the central Asiatic populations. 

The population of the British Islands, at the present time, offers 
the two extremes of the tall blond and the short brunet types. 
The tall blond long-heads resemble those of the continent; but 
our short brunet race is long-headed. Brunet broad-heads, such 
as those met with in the central European highlands, do not ex- 
ist among us. This absence of any considerable number of dis- 
tinctly broad-headed people (say with the cephalic index above 
81 or 82) in the modern population of the United Kingdom is the 
more remarkable, since the investigations of the late Dr. Thur- 
nam, and others, proved the existence of a large proportion of 
tall broad-heads among the people interred in British tumuli of 
the neolithic age. It would seem that these broad-skulled immi- 
grants have been absorbed by an older long-skulled population; 
just as, in South Germany, the long-headed Alemanni have been 
absorbed by the older broad-heads. The short brunet long-heads 
are not peculiar to our islands. On the contrary, they abound in 
western France and in Spain, while they predominate in Sardinia, 
Corsica, and South Italy, and, it may be, occupied a much larger 
area in ancient times. 

Thus, in the region which has been under consideration, there 
are evidences of the existence of four races of men — (1) blond 
long-heads of tall stature, (2) brunet broad-heads of short stature, 
(3) mongoloid brunet broad-heads of short stature, (4) brunet 
long-heads of short stature. The regions in which these races 
appear with least admixture are — (1) Scandinavia, North Ger- 
many, and parts of the British Islands; (2) central France, the 
central European highlands, and Piedmont; (3) Arctic and East- 
ern Europe, central Asia; (4) the western parts of the British 
Islands and of France; Spain, South Italy. And the inhabitants 
of the localities which lie between these foci present the inter- 
mediate gradations, such as short blond long-heads, and tall brunet 
short-heads, and long-heads which might be expected to result from 
their intermixture. The evidence at present extant is consistent 
with the supposition that the blond long-heads, the brunet broad- 
heads, and the brunet long-heads, have existed in Europe through- 
out historic times, and very far back into pre-historic times. 
There is no proof of any migration of Asiatics into Europe, west 
of the basin of the Dnieper, down to the time of Attila. On the 
contrary, the first great movements of the European population 
of which there is any conclusive evidence is that series of Gaulish 



ARYAN QUESTION AND PREHISTORIC MAN 167 

invasions of the east and south, which ultimately extended from 
North Italy as far as Galatia in Asia Minor. 

It is now time to consider the relations between the phenomena 
of racial distribution, as thus defined, and those of the distribution 
of languages. The blond long-heads of Europe speak, or have 
spoken, Lithuanian, Teutonic, or Celtic dialects, and they are not 
known to have ever used any but these Aryan languages. A large 
proportion of the brunet broad-heads once spoke the Ligurian and 
the Ehastic dialects, which are believed to have been non- Aryan. 
But, when the Romans made acquaintance with Transalpine Gaul, 
the inhabitants of that country between the Garonne and the 
Seine (Caesar's Celtica) seem, at any rate for the most part, to 
have spoken Celtic dialects. The brunet long-heads of Spain 
and of France appear to have used a non- Aryan language, that 
Euskarian which still lives on the shores of the Bay of Biscay. 
In Britain there is no certain knowledge of their use of any but 
Celtic tongues. What they spoke in the Mediterranean islands 
and in South Italy does not appear. 

The blond broad-heads of Poland and West Russia form part 
of a people who, when they first made their appearance in history, 
occupied the marshy plains imperfectly drained by the Vistula, 
on the west, the Duna, on the north, and the Dnieper and Bug, on 
the south. They were known to their neighbours as Wends, and 
among themselves as Serbs and Slavs. The Slavonic languages 
spoken by these people are said to be most closely allied to that 
of the Lithuanians, who lay upon their northern border. The 
Slavs resemble the South Germans in the predominance of broad- 
heads among them, while stature and complexion vary from the, 
often tall, blonds who prevail in Poland and Great Russia to the, 
often short, brunets common elsewhere. There is certainly noth- 
ing in the history of the Slav people to interfere with the suppo- 
sition that, from very early times, they have been a mixed race. 
Eor their country lies between that of the tall blond long- 
heads on the north, that of the short brunet broad-heads of the 
European type on the west, and that of the short brunet broad- 
heads of the Asiatic type on the east: and, throughout their his- 
tory, they have either thrust themselves among their neighbours, 
or have been overrun and trampled down by them. Gauls and 
Goths have traversed their country, on their way to the east and 
south: Einno-tataric people, on their way to the west, have not 
only done the like, but have held them in subjection for centuries. 
On the other hand, there have been times when their western fron- 
tier advanced beyond the Elbe ; indeed, it is asserted that they have 



168 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

sent colonies to Holland and even as far as sontliern England. 
A large part of eastern Germany; Bohemia, Moravia, Hungary; 
the lower valley of the Danube, and the Balkan peninsula, have 
been largely or completely Slavonised; and the Slavonic rule and 
language, which once had trouble to hold their own in West Rus- 
sia and Little Russia, have now extended their sway over all the 
Finno-tataric populations of Great Russia; while they are ad- 
vancing, among those of central Asia, up to the frontiers of India 
on the south and to the Pacific on the extreme east. Thus it is 
hardly possible that fewer than three races should have con- 
tributed to the formation of the Slavonic people; namely, the 
blond long-heads, the European brunet broad-heads, and the Asiatic 
brunet broad-heads. And, in the- absence of evidence to the con- 
trary, it is certainly permissible to suppose that it is the first race 
which has furnished the blond complexion and the stature ob- 
servable in so many, especially of the. northern Slavs, and that the 
brunet complexion and. the broad skulls must be attributed to the 
other two. But, if that supposition is permissible, then the Aryan 
form and substance of the Slavonic languages may also be fairly 
supposed to have proceeded from the blond long-heads. They 
could not have come from the Asiatic brunet broad-heads, who 
all speak non- Aryan languages; and the presumption is against 
their coniing from the brunet broad-heads of the central European 
highlands, among whom an apparently non-Ayran language was 
largely spoken, even in historical times. 

In the same way, the tall blond tribes among the Fins may be 
accounted for as the product of admixture. The great majority 
of the Finno-tataric people are brunet broad-heads of the Asiatic 
type. But that the Fins proper have long been in contact with 
Aryans is evidenced by the many words borrowed from Aryan 
which their language contains. Hence there has been abundant 
opportunity for the mixture of races; and for the transference 
to some of the Fins of more or fewer of the physical characters 
of the Aryans and vice versa. On any hypothesis, the frontier 
between Aryan and Finno-tataric people must have extended 
across west-central Asia for a very long period; and, at any point 
of this frontier, it has been possible that mixed races of blond 
Fins or of brunet Aryans should be formed. 

So much for the European people who now speak Celtic, or 
Teutonic, or Slavonian, or Lithuanian tongues; or who are known 
to have spoken them, before the supersession of so many of the 
early native dialects by the Romance modifications of the language 
of Rome. With respect to the original speakers of Greek and 
Latin, the unravelling of the tangled ethnology of the Balkan pen- 



ARYAN QUESTION AND PREHISTORIC MAN 169 

insula and the ordering of the chaos of that of Italy are enter- 
prises upon which I do not propose to enter. In regard to the first, 
however, there are a few tolerably satisfactory data. The ancient 
Thracians were proverbially blue-eyed and fair-haired. Tall blonds 
were common among the ancient Greeks, who were a long-headed 
people; and the Sphakiots of Crete, probably the purest repre- 
sentatives of the old Hellenes in existence, are tall and blond. 
But considering that Greek colonisation was taking place on a 
great scale in the eighth century b. c, and that, centuries earlier 
and later, the restless Hellene had been fighting, trading, plunder- 
ing and kidnapping, on both sides of the ^gean, and perhaps as 
far as the shores of Syria and of Egypt, it is probable that, even 
at the dawn of history, the maritime Greeks were a very mixed 
race. On the other hand, the Dorians may well have preserved the 
original type; and their famous migration may be the earliest 
known example of those movements of the Aryan race which were, 
in later times, to change the face of Europe. Analogy perhaps 
justifies a guess, that those ethnological shadows, the Pelasgi, 
may have been an earlier mixed population, like that of Western 
Gaul and of Britain before the Teutonic invasion. At any rate, 
the tall blond long-heads are so well represented in the oldest his- 
tory of the Balkan peninsula, that they may be credited with the 
Aryan languages spoken there. And it may be that the tradition 
which peopled Phrygia with Thracians represents a real move- 
ment of the Aryan race into Asia Minor, such as that which in 
after years carried the Gauls thither. 

The difficulties in the way of a probable identification of the 
people among whom the various dialects of the Latin group de- 
veloped themselves, with any race traceable in Italy in historical 
times, are very great. In addition to the Italic " aborigines " 
northern Italy was peopled by Ligurian brunet broad-heads; with 
Gauls, probably, to a large extent, blond long-heads ; with lUyrians, 
about whom nothing is known. Besides these, there were those 
perplexing people the Etruscans, who seem to have been, origi- 
nally, brunet long-heads. South Italy and Sicily present a con- 
tingent of " Sikels," Phoenicians and Greeks ; while over all, in 
comparatively modern times, follows a wash of Teutonic blood. 
The Latin dialects arose, no one knows how, among the tribes of 
Central Italy, encompassed on all sides by people of the most 
various physical characters, who were gradually absorbed into the 
eternally widening maw of Rome, and there, by dint of using the 
same speech, became the first example of that wonderful ethnolog- 
ical hotch-potch miscalled the Latin race. The only trustworthy 
guide here is archaeological investigation. A great advance will 



170 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

have been made when the race characters of the pre-historic peo- 
ple of the terramare (who are identified by Helbig* with the 
primitive Umbrians) become fully known. 

I cannot learn that the ancient literatures of India and of 
Persia give any definite information about the complexion of the 
Indo-Iranians, beyond conveying the impression that they were 
what we vaguely call white men. But it is important to note that 
tall blond people make their appearance sporadically among the 
Tadjiks of Persia and of Turkestan; that the Siah-posh and Galt- 
chas of the mountainous barrier between Turkestan and India 
are such; and that the same characters obtain largely among the 
Kurds on the western frontier of Persia, at the present day. The 
Kurds and the Galtchas are generally broad-headed, the others are 
long-headed. These people and the ancient Alans thus form a 
series of stepping-stones between the blond Aryans of Europe and 
those of Asia, standing up amidst the flood of Finno-tataric peo- 
ple which has inundated the rest of the interval between the 
sources of the Dnieper and those of the Oxus. If only more was 
known about the Sarmatians and the Scythians of the oldest his- 
torians, it is not improbable, I think, that we should discover that, 
even in historical times, the area occupied by the blond long- 
heads of Aryan speech has been, at least temporarily, continuous 
from the shores of the North Sea to central Asia. 

Suppose it to be admitted, as a fair working hypothesis, that 
the blond long-heads once extended without a break over this vast 
area, and that all the Aryan tongues have been developed out of 
their original speech, the question respecting the home of the 
race when the various families of Aryan speech were in the con- 
dition of inceptive dialects remains open. For all that, at first, 
appears to the contrary, it may have been in the west, or in the 
east, or anywhere between the two. In seeking for a solution of 
this obscure problem, it is an important preliminary to grasp the 
truth that the Aryan race must be much older than the primitive 
Aryan speech. It is not to be seriously imagined that the latter 
sprang suddenly into existence, by the act of a jealous Deity^ 
apparently unaware of the strength of man^s native tendency 
towards confusion of speech. But if all the diverse languages of 
men were not brought suddenly into existence, in order to frus- 
trate the plans of the audacious bricklayers of the plain of Shinar ; 
if this professedly historical statement is only another " type," 

* Die Italiker in der Poehene, 1879. See for much valuable informa- 
tion respecting the races of the Balkan and Italic peninsulse, Zampa's 
essay, " Vergleichende Anthropologische Ethnographie von Apulien," 
Zeitschrift fUr Ethnologic, xviii., 1886. 



ARYAN QUESTION AND PREHISTORIC MAN 171 

and primitive Aryan, like all other languages, was built up by a 
secular process of development, the blond long-heads, among whom 
it grew into shape, must for ages have been, philologically speak- 
ing, non- Aryans, or perhaps one should say "pro-Aryans." I sup- 
pose it may be safely assumed that Sanskrit and Zend and Greek 
were fully differentiated in the year 1500 b. c. If so, how much 
further back must the existence of the primitive Aryan, from 
which these proceeded, be dated? And how much further yet, 
that real inventus mundi (so far as man is concerned) when primi- 
tive Aryan was in course of formation? And how much further 
still, the differentiation of the nascent Aryan blond long-head race 
from the primitive stock of mankind? 

If any one maintains that the blond long-headed people, among 
whom, by the hypothesis, the primitive Aryan language was gen- 
erated may have formed a separate race as far back as the pleisto- 
cene epoch, when the first unquestionable records of man make 
their appearance, I do not see that he goes beyond possibility — • 
though, of course, that is a very different thing from proving his 
case. But, if the blond long-heads are thus ancient, the problem 
of their primitive seat puts on an altogether new aspect. Specu- 
lation must take into account climatal and geographical condi- 
tions widely different from those which obtain in northern Eura- 
sia at the present day. During much of the vast length of the 
pleistocene period, it would seem that men could no more have 
lived either in Britain north of the Thames, or in Scandinavia, 
or in northern Germany, or in northern Bussia, than they can live 
now in the interior of Greenland, seeing that the land was cov- 
ered by a great ice sheet like that which at present shrouds the 
latter country. At that epoch, the blond long-heads cannot reason- 
ably be supposed to have occupied the regions in which we meet 
with them in the oldest times of which history has kept a record. 

But even if we are content to assume a vastly less antiquity for 
the Aryan race; if we only make the assumption, for which there 
is considerable positive warranty, that it has existed in Europe 
ever since the end of the pleistocene period — when the fauna and 
flora assumed approximately their present condition and the state 
of things called Becent by geologists set in — we have to reckon 
with a distribution of land and water, not only very different from 
that which at present obtains in northern Eurasia, but of such a 
nature that it can hardly fail to have exerted a great influence 
on the development and the distribution of the races of mankind. 

At the present time four great separate bodies of water, the 
Black Sea, the Caspian, the Sea of Aral, and Lake Balkash, oc- 
cupy the southern end of the vast plains which extend from the 



172 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

Arctic Sea to tlie highlands of the Balkan peninsula, of Asia 
Minor, of Persia, of Afghanistan, and of the high plateaus of 
central Asia as far as the Altai. They lie for the most part be- 
tween the parallels of 40° and 50° N. and are separated by wide 
stretches of barren and salt-laden wastes. The surface of Bal- 
kash is 514 feet, that of the Aral 158 feet above the Mediterranean, 
that of the Caspian eighty-five feet below it. The Black Sea is 
in free communication with the Mediterranean by the Bosphorus 
and the Dardanelles ; but the others, in historical times, have been, 
at most, temporarily connected with it and with one another, by 
relatively insignificant channels. This state of things, however, 
is comparatively modern. At no very distant period, the land of 
Asia Minor was continuous with that of Europe, across the present 
site of the Bosphorus, forming a barrier several hundred feet high, 
which dammed up the waters of the Black Sea. A vast extent of 
eastern Europe and western central Asia thus became a huge 
reservoir, the lowest part of the lip of which was probably situa- 
ted somewhat more than 200 feet above the sea level, along the 
present southern watershed of the Obi, which flows into the Arctic 
Ocean. Into this basin, the largest rivers of Europe, such as 
the Danube and the Volga, and what were then great rivers of 
Asia, the Oxus and Jaxartes, with all the intermediate affluents, 
poured their waters. In addition, it received the overflow of Lake 
Balkash, then much larger; and, probably, that of the inland sea 
of Mongolia. At that time, the level of the Sea of Aral stood at 
least 60 feet higher than it does at present.* Instead of the sepa- 
rate Black, Caspian, and Aral seas, there was one vast Ponto- 
Aralian Mediterranean, which must have been prolonged into arms 
and fiords along the lower valleys of the Danube, the Volga (in 
the course of which Caspian shells are now found as far as the 
Kuma), the Ural, and the other affluent rivers — while it seems 
to have sent its overflow, northward, through the present basin of 
the Obi. At the same time, there is reason to believe that the 
northern coast of Asia, which everywhere shows signs of recent 
slow upheaval, was situated far to the south of its present posi- 
tion. The consequences of this state of things have an extremely 
important bearing on the question under discussion. In the first 
place, an insular climate must be substituted for the present ex- 
tremely continental climate of west central Eurasia. That is an 
important fact in many ways. For example, the present eastern 
climatal limitations of the beech could not have existed, and if 
primitive Aryan goes back thus far, the arguments based upon 

* This is proved by the old shore-marks on the hill of Kashkanatao in 
the midst of the delta of the Oxus. Some authorities put the ancient 
level very much higher — 200 feet or more ( Keane, Asia, p. 408) . 



ARYAN QUESTION AND PREHISTORIC MAN 173 

the occurrence of its name in some Aryan languages and not in 
others lose their force. In the second place, the European and 
the Asiatic moieties of the great Eurasiatic plains were cut off 
from one another by the Ponto-Aralian Mediterranean and it3 
prolongations. In the third place, direct access to Asia Minor, 
to the Caucasus, to the Persian highlands, and to Afghanistan, 
from the European moiety was completely barred; while the tribes 
of eastern central Asia were equally shut out from Persia and 
from India by huge mountain ranges and table lands. Thus, 
if the blond long-head race existed so far back as the epoch in 
which the Ponto-Aralian Mediterranean had its full extension, 
space for its development, under the most favourable conditions, 
and free from any serious intrusion of foreign elements from Asia, 
was presented in northern and eastern Europe. 

When the slow erosion of the passage of the Dardanelles drained 
the Ponto-Aralian waters into the Mediterranean, they must have 
everywhere fallen as near the level of the latter as the make of the 
country permitted, remaining, at first, connected by such straits 
as that of which the traces yet persist between the Black and the 
Caspian, the Caspian and the Aral Seas respectively. Then, the 
gradual elevation of the land of northern Siberia, bringing in its 
train a continental climate, with its dry air and intense summer 
heats, the loss by evaporation soon exceeded the greatly reduced 
supply of water, and Balkash, Aral, and Caspian gradually shrank 
to their present dimensions. In the course of this process, the 
broad plains between the separated inland seas, as soon as they 
were laid bare, threw open easy routes to the Caucasus and to 
Turkestan, which might well be utilised by the blond long-heads 
moving eastward through the plains, contemporaneously left dry, 
south and east of the Ural chain. The same process of desicca- 
tion, however, would render the route from east central Asia west- 
ward as easily practicable ; and, in the end, the Aryan stock might 
easily be cut in two, as we now find it to be, by the movement of 
the Mongoloid brunet broad-heads to the west. 

Thus we arrive at what is practically Latham's Sarmatian hy- 
pothesis — if the term " Sarmatian " is stretched a little, so as 
to include the higher parts and a good deal of the northern slopes 
of Europe between the Ural and the German Ocean; an im- 
mense area of country, at least as large as that now included be- 
tween the Black Sea, the Atlantic, the Baltic, and the Mediter- 
ranean. 

If we 'magine the blond long-head race to have been spread over 
this area, while the primitive Aryan language was in course of 
formation, its north-western and its south-eastern tribes will have 



174 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

been 1,500, or more, miles apart. Thus, there will have been 
ample scope for linguistic differentiation; and, as adjacent tribes 
were probably influenced by the same causes, it is reasonable to 
suppose that, at any given region of the periphery the process of 
differentiation, whether brought about by internal or external 
agencies, will have been analogous. Hence, it is permissible to im- 
agine that, even before primitive Aryan had attained its full 
development, the course of that development had become some- 
what different in different localities; and, in this sense, it may be 
quite true that one uniform primitive Aryan language never 
existed. The nascent mode of speech may very early have got a 
twist, so to speak, towards Lithuanian, Slavonian, Teutonic, or 
Celtic, in the north and west; towards Thracian and Greek, in 
the south-west; towards Armenian in the south; towards Indo- 
Iranian in the south-east. With the centrifugal movements of the 
several fractions of the race, these tendencies of peripheral groups 
would naturally become more and more intensified in proportion 
to their isolation. No doubt, in the centre and in other parts of 
the periphery of the Aryan region, other dialectic groups made 
their appearance; but whatever development they may have at- 
tained, these have failed to maintain themselves in the battle with 
the Finno-tataric tribes, or with the stronger among their own 
kith and kin.* 

Thus I think that the most plausible hypothetical answers which 
can be given to the two questions which we put at starting are 
these. There was and is an Aryan race — that is to say, the char- 
acteristic modes of speech, termed Aryan, were developed among 
the blond long-heads alone, however much some of them may have 
been modified by the importation of non- Aryan elements. As to 
the " home " of the Aryan race, it was in Europe, and lay chiefly 
east of the central highlands and west of the Ural. From this 
region it spread west, along the coasts of the North Sea to our 
islands, where, probably, it met the brunet long-heads; to France, 
where it found both these and the brunet short-heads; to Switzer- 
land and South Germany, where it impinged on the brunet short- 
heads; to Italy, where brunet short-heads seem to have abounded 
in the north and long-heads in the south; and to the Balkan pen- 
insula, about the earliest inhabitants of which we know next to 
nothing. There are two ways to Asia Minor, the one over the 
Bosphorus and the other through the passes of the Caucasus, 
and the Aryans may well have utilised both. Finally, the south- 

* See the views of J. Schmidt (stated and discussed in Schrader and 
Jevons, pp. 63-67), with which those here set forth are substantially 
'identical 



ARYAN QUESTION AND PREHISTORIC MAN 175 

eastern tribes probably spread themselves gradually over west 
Turkestan, and, after evolving the primitive Indo-Iranian dialect, 
eventually colonised Persia and Hindostan, where their speech de- 
veloped into its final forms. On this hypothesis, the notion that 
the Celts and the Teutons migrated from about Pamir and the 
Hindoo-Koosh is as far from the truth as the supposition that 
the Indo-Iranians migrated from Scandinavia. It supposes that 
the blond long-heads, in what may be called their nascent Aryan 
stage, that is before their dialects had taken on the full Aryan 
characteristics, were spread over a wide region which is, conven- 
tionally, European; but which, from the point of view of the 
physical geographer, is rather to be regarded as a continuation of 
Asia. Moreover, it is quite possible and even probable, that the 
blond long-heads may have arrived in Turkestan before their lan- 
guage had reached, or at any rate passed beyond, the stage of 
primitive Aryan; and that the whole process of differentiation 
into Indo-Iranian took place during the long ages of their resi- 
dence in the basin of the Oxus. Thus, the question whether the 
seat of the primitive Aryans was in Europe, or in Asia, becomes 
very much a debate about geographical terminology. 

The foregoing arguments in favour of Latham's " Sarmatian 
hypothesis" have been based upon data which lie within the ken 
of history or may be surely concluded by reasoning backwards 
from the present state of things. But, thanks to the investigations 
of the pre-historie archaeologists and anthropologists during the 
last half century, a vast mass of positive evidence respecting the 
distribution and the condition of mankind in the long interval 
between the dawn of history and the commencement of the recent 
epoch has been brought to light. 

During this period, there is evidence that men existed in all 
those regions of Europe which have yet been properly examined; 
and such of their bony remains as have been discovered exhibit 
no less diversity of stature and cranial conformation than at pres- 
ent. There are tall and short men ; long-skulled and broad-skulled 
men; and it is probably safe to conclude that the present con- 
trast of blonds and brunets existed among them when they were 
in the flesh. Moreover, it has become clear that, everywhere, 
the oldest of these people were in the so-called neolithic stage of 
civilisation. That is to say, they not merely used stone imple- 
ments which were chipped into shape, but they also employed 
tools and weapons brought to an edge by grinding. At first they 
know little or nothing of the use of metals; they possess domes- 
tic animals and cultivated plants and live in houses of simple 
construction. 



176 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

In some parts of Europe little advance seems to have been 
made, even down to historical times. But in Britain, France, 
Scandinavia, Germany, Western Kussia, Switzerland, Austria, 
the plain of the Po, very probably also in the Balkan peninsula, 
culture gradually advanced until a relatively high degree of 
civilisation was attained. The initial impulse in this course of 
progress appears to have been given by the discovery that metal 
is a better material for tools and weapons than stone. In the 
early days of pre-historic archaeology, Nilsson showed that, in 
the interments of the middle age, bronze largely took the place 
of stone, and that, only in the latest, was iron substituted for 
bronze. Thus arose the generalisation of the occurrence of a 
regular succession of stages of culture, which were somewhat un- 
fortunately denominated the " ages " of stone, bronze, and iron. 
For a long time after this order of succession in the same locality 
(which, it was sometimes forgotten, has nothing to do with chron- 
ological contemporaneity in different localities) was made out, 
the change from stone to bronze was ascribed to foreign, and, of 
course. Eastern influences. There were the ubiquitous Phoenician 
traders and the immigrant Aryans from the Hindoo-Koosh, ready 
to hand. But further investigation has proved* for various parts 
of Europe and made it probable for others, that though the old 
order of succession is correct it is incomplete, and that a copper 
stage must be interpolated between the neolithic and the bronze 
stages. Bronze is an artificial product the formation of which 
implies a knowledge of copper; and it is certain that copper was, 
at a very early period, smelted out of the native ores, by the 
people of central Europe who used it. When they learned that the 
hardness and toughness of their metal were immensely improved 
by alloying it with a small quantity of tin, they forsook copper 
for bronze, and gradually attained a wonderful skill in bronze- 
work. Finally, some of the European people became acquainted 
with iron, and its superior qualities drove out bronze, as bronze 
had driven out stone, from use in the manufacture of implements 
and weapons of the best class. But the process of substitution of 
copper and bronze for stone was gradual, and, for common pur- 
poses, stone remained in use long after the introduction of me+als. 

The pile-dwellings of Switzerland have yielded an unbroken 
archseological record of these changes. Those of eastern Switzer- 
land ceased to exist soon after the appearance of metals, but in 
those of the Lakes of Neuchatel and Bienne the history is con- 

* " Proved " is perhaps too strong a word. But the evidence set forth 
by Dr. Much {IDie Kupferzeit in Europa, 1886) in favour of a copper 
stage of culture among the inhabitants of the pile-dwellings is very 
weighty. 



ARYAN QUESTION AND PREHISTORIC MAN 177 

tinued through the stage of bronze to the beginning of that of 
iron. And in all this long series of remains, which lay bare the 
minutest details of the life of the pile-dwellers, from the neolithic 
to the perfected bronze stage, there is no indication of any dis- 
turbance such as must have been caused by foreign invasion; and 
such as was produced by intruders, shortly after the iron stage 
was reached. Undoubtedly the constructors of the pile-dwellings 
must have received foreign influences through the channel of 
trade, and may have received them by the slow immigration of 
other races. Their amber, their jade, and their tin show that they 
had commercial intercourse with somewhat distant regions. The 
amber, however, takes us no further than the Baltic; and it is 
now known that jade is to be had within the boundaries of Eu- 
rope, while tin lay no further off than north Italy. An argu- 
ment in favour of oriental influence has been based upon the 
characters of certain of the cultivated plants and domesticated 
animals. But even that argument does not necessarily take us 
beyond the limits of south-eastern Europe; and it needs recon- 
sideration in view of the changes of physical geography and of 
climate to which I have drawn attention. 

In connection with this question there is another important 
series of facts to be taken into consideration. When, in the seven- 
teenth century, the Russians advanced beyond the Ural and began 
to occupy Siberia, they found that the majority of the natives 
used implements of stone and bone. Only a few possessed tools 
or weapons of iron, which had reached them by way of commerce ; 
the Ostiaks and the Tartars of Tom, alone, extracted their iron 
from the ore. It was not until the invaders reached the Lena, 
in the far east, that they met with skilful smiths among the 
Jakuts,* who manufactured knives, axes, lances, battle-axes, and 
leather jerkins studded with iron; and among the Tunguses and 
Lamuts, who had learned from the Jakuts. 

But there is an older chapter of Siberian history which was 
closed in the seventeenth century, as that of the people of the pile- 
dwellings of Switzerland had ended when the Romans entered 
Helvetia. Multitudes of sepulchral tumuli, termed like those of 
European Russia, '' kurgans," are scattered over the north Asiatic 
plains, and are especially agglomerated about the upper waters 
of the Jenisei. Some are modern, while others, extremely an- 
cient, are attributed to a quasi-mythical people, the Tschudes. 

* Andree, Die Metalle hei den 'Naturvolkern (p. 114). It is interesting 
to note that the Jakuts have always been pastoral nomads, formerly 
shepherds, now horse-breeders, and that they continue to work their iron 
in the primitive fashion; as the argument that metallurgic skill implies 
settled agricultural life not unfrequently makes its appearance. 



178 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

These Tschudisli kurgans abound in copper and gold articles of 
use and luxury, but contain neither bronze nor iron. The 
Tschudes procured their copper and their gold from the metalli- 
ferous rocks of the Ural and the Altai; and their old shafts, adits, 
and rubbish heaps led the Russians to the rediscovery of the 
forgotten stores of wealth. The race to which the Tschudes be- 
longed and the age of the works which testify to their former 
existence, are alike unknown. But seeing that a rumour of them 
appears to have reached Herodotus, while, on the other hand, the 
pile-dwelling civilization of Switzerland may perhaps come down 
as late as the fifth century b. c, the possibility that a knowledge 
of the technical value of copper may have travelled from Siberia 
westward must not be overlooked. If the idea of turning metala 
to account must needs be Asiatic, it may be north Asiatic just as 
well as south Asiatic. In the total absence of trustworthy, 
chronological and anthropological data, speculation may run wild. 

The oldest civilisations for which we have an, even approxi- 
mately, accurate chronology are those of the valleys of the Nile 
and of the Euphrates. Here, culture seems to have attained a 
degree of perfection, at least as high as that of the bronze stage, 
six thousand years ago. But before the intermediation of Etrus- 
can, Phoenician, and Greek traders, there is no evidence that they 
exerted any serious influence upon Europe or northern Asia. As 
to the old civilisation of Mesopotamia, what is to be said until 
something definite is known about the racial characters of its 
originators, the Accadians? As matters stand, they are just as 
likely to have been a group of the same race as the Egyptians, 
or the Dravidians, as anything else. And considering that their 
culture developed in the extreme south of the Euphrates valley, 
it is difiicult to imagine that its influence could have spread to 
northern Eurasia except by the Phoenician (and Carian?) inter- 
mediation which was undoubtedly operative in comparatively late 
times. 

Are we then to bring down the discovery of the use of copper 
in Switzerland to, at earliest, 1500 B. o.^, and to put it down to 
Phoenician hints ? But why copper ? At that time the Phoenicians 
must have been familiar with the use of bronze. And if, on the 
other hand, the northern Eurasiatics had got as far as copper, by 
the help of their own ingenuity, why deny them the capacity to 
make the further step to bronze? Carry back the borrowing sys- 
tem as far as we may, in the end we must needs come to some 
man or men from whom the novel idea started, and who after 
many trials and errors gave it practical shape. And there really 
is no ground in the nature of things for supposing that such men 



ARYAN QUESTION AND PREHISTORIC MAN 179 

of practical genius may not have turned up, independently, in 
more races than one. 

The capacity of the population of Europe for independent 
progress while in the copper and early bronze stage — the " palseo- 
metallic " stage, as it might be called — appears to me to be 
demonstrated in a remarkable manner by the remains of their 
architecture. From the crannog to the elaborate pile-dwelling, 
and from the rudest enclosure to the complex fortification of the 
terramare, there is an advance which is obviously a native prod- 
uct. So with the sepulchral constructions; the stone cist, with or 
without a preservative, or memorial cairn, grows into the cham- 
bered graves lodged in tumuli ; into such megalithic edifices as the 
dromic vaults of Maes How and New Grange; to culminate in the 
finished masonry of the tombs of Mycen?e, constructed on exactly, 
the same plan. Can any one look at the varied series of forms 
which lie between the primitive five or six flat stones fitted together 
into a mere box, and such a building as Maes How, and yet 
imagine that the latter is the result of foreign tuition? But the 
men who built Maes How, without metal tools, could certainly 
have built the so-called " treasure-house " of Mycenae, with them. 

If these old men of the sea, the heights of Hindoo-Koosh- 
Pamir and the plain of Shinar, had been less firmly seated upon 
the shoulders of anthropologists, I think they would long since 
have seen that it is at least possible that the early civilisation of 
Europe is of indigenous growth; and that, so far as the evidence 
at present accumulated goes, the neolithic culture may have at- 
tained its full development, copper may have gradually come 
into use, and bronze may have succeeded copper, without foreign 
intervention. 

So far as I am aware, every raw material employed in Europe up 
to the Palseo-metallic stage, is to be found within the limits of 
Europe; and there is no proof that the old races of domesticated 
animals and plants could not have been developed within these 
limits. If any one chose to maintain, that the use of bronze in 
Europe originated among the inhabitants of Etruria and radiated 
thence, along the already established lines of traffic to all parts 
of Europe, I do not see that his contention could be upset. It 
would be hard to prove either that the primitive Etruscans could 
not have discovered the way to manufacture bronze, or that they 
did not discover it and become a great mercantile people in con- 
sequence, before Phoenician commerce had reached the remote 
shores of the Tyrrhene Sea. 

Can it be safely concluded that the palseo-metallic culture which 
we have been considering was the appanage of any one of the 



180 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

western Eurasiatic races rather than another? Did it arise and 
develop among the brunet or the blond long-heads, or among the 
brunet short-heads? I do not think there are any means of an- 
swering these questions, positively, at present. Schrader has 
pointed out that the state of culture of the primitive Aryans, 
deduced from philological data, closely corresponds with that which 
obtained among the pile-dwellers in the neolithic stage. But the 
resemblance of the early stages of civilisation among the most dif- 
ferent and widely separated races of mankind, should warn us 
that archaeology is no more a sure guide in questions of race than 
philology. 

With respect to the osteological characters of the people of the 
Swiss pile-dwellings information is as yet scanty. So far as the 
present evidence goes, they appear to have comprised both broad- 
heads and long-heads, of moderate stature."^ In France, England, 
and Germany, both long and broad skulls are found in tumuli 
belonging to the neolithic stage. In some parts of England the 
long skulls, and in others the broad skulls, accompany the higher 
stature. In the Scandinavian peninsula, nine-tenths of the 
neolithic people are decided long-heads: in Denmark, there is a 
much larger proportion of broad-heads. 

In view of all the facts known to me (which cannot be stated 
in greater detail in this place), I am disposed to think that the 
blond long-heads, the brunet long-heads, and the brunet broad- 
heads have existed on the continent of Europe throughout the 
Recent period: that only the former two at first inhabited our 
islands ; but that a mixed race of taU broad-heads, like some of the 
Black-foresters of the present day, so excellently described by 
Ecker, migrated from the continent and formed that tall con- 
tingent of the population which has been identified (rightly or 
wrongly) with the Belgse by Thurman and which seems to have 
subsequently lost itself among the predominant brunet and blond 
long-heads. 

I do not think there is anything to warrant the conclusion that 
the palseo-metallic culture of Europe took its origin among the 
blond long-heads (or supposed Aryan) race; or that the people of 
the Swiss pile-dwellings belonged to that race. The long-heads 

* Professor Virchow has guardedly expressed the opinion that the 
oldest inhabitants of the Swiss pile-dwellings were broad-heads, and 
that later on (commencing before the bronze stage) there was a gradual 
infusion of long-heads among them (Zeitschrift filr EtJinologie, xvii., 
1885). There is independent evidence of the existence of broad-heads 
in the Cevennes during the neolithic period, and I should be disposed 
to think that this opinion may well be correct; but the examination of 
the evidence on which it is, at present, based does not lead me to feel very 
confident about it. 



ARYAN QUESTION AND PREHISTORIC MAN 181 

among them may just as likely have been brunets. In north- 
eastern Italy there is clear evidence of the superposition of at least 
four stages of culture, in which that of the copper and bronze 
using terramare people comes second ; a stage marked by Etruscan 
domination occupies the third place; and that is followed by the 
stage which appertains to the Gauls, with their long swords and 
other characteristic iron work. In western Switzerland, on the 
other hand, at La Tene, and elsewhere, similar relics show that the 
Gauls followed upon the latest population of the pile-dwellings 
among whom traces of Etruscan influence (though not of domin- 
ion) are to be found. Helbig supposes the terramare people to 
have been Greco-Latin-speaking Pelasgi, and consequently Aryan. 
But we cannot suppose the people of the pile-dwellings of Switzer- 
land to have been speakers of primitive Greco-Latin (if ever there 
was such a language). And if the Gauls were the first speakers 
of Celtic who got into Switzerland, what Aryan language can the 
people of the pile-dwellings have spoken?* 

As I have already mentioned, there is not the least doubt that 
man existed in north-western Europe during the Pleistocene or 
Quaternary epoch. It is not only certain that men were contem- 
poraries of the mammoth, the hairy rhinoceros, the reindeer, the 
cave bear, and other great carnivora, in England and in France, 
but a great deal has been ascertained about the modes of life of 
our predecessors. They were savage hunters, .who took advantage 
of such natural shelters as overhanging rocks and caves, and per- 
haps built themselves rough wigwams; but who had no domestic 
animals and have left no sign that they cultivated plants. In 
many localities there is evidence that a very considerable interval 
— the so-called hiatus — intervened between the time when the 
Quaternary or palaeolithic men occupied particular caves and river 
basins and the accumulation of the debris left by their neolithic 
successors. And, in spite of all the warnings against negative 
evidence afforded by the history of geology, some have v6ry posi- 
tively asserted that this means a complete break between the 
Quaternary and the Recent populations — that the Quaternary 
population followed the retreating ice northwards and left behind 
them a desert which remained unpeopled for ages. Other high 
authorities, on the contrary, have maintained that the races of 
men who now inhabit Europe may all be traced back to the 
Great Ice Age. When a conflict of opinion of this kind obtains 

* See Dr. Munro's excellent work, The Lake Dwellings of Europe, lor 
La Ttoe. Readers of Professor Rhys' recent articles {Scottish Review, 
1890), may suggest that the pile-dwellins: people spoke the Gaedhelic 
form of Celtic, and the Gauls the Brythonic form. 



182 MAN*S PLACE IN NATURE 

among reasonable and instructed men, it is generally a safe con- 
clusion that the evidence for neither view is worth much. Cer- 
tainly that is the result of my own cogitations with regard to 
both the hiatus doctrine (in its extreme form) and its opposite — 
though I think the latter by much the more likely to turn out 
right. But I hesitate to adopt it on the evidence which has been 
obtained up to this time. 

No doubt, human bones and skulls of various types have been 
discovered in close proximity to palaeolithic implements and to 
skeletons of quaternary quadrupeds; no doubt, if the bones and 
skulls in question were not human, their contemporaneity would 
hardly have been questioned. But, since they are human, the 
demand for further evidence really need not be ascribed to mere 
conservative prejudice. Because the human biped differs from all 
other bipeds and quadrupeds, in the tendency to put his dead out 
of sight in various ways; commonly by burial. It is a habit 
worthy of all respect in itself, but generative of subtle traps and 
grievous pitfalls for the unwary investigator of human palae- 
ontology. For it may easily happen, that the bones of him that 
" died o' Wednesday," may thus come to lie alongside the bones 
of animals that were extinct thousands of years before that Wed- 
nesday; and yet the interment may have been effected so many 
thousands of years ago that no outward sign betrays the difference 
in date. In all investigations of this kind, the most careful and 
critical study of the circumstances is needful if the results are 
to be accepted as perfectly trustworthy. 

In the case of the remains found in a cave of the valley of the 
Neander, near Diisseldorf, half a century ago — the characters of 
which gave rise to a vast amount of discussion at that time and 
subsequently — the circumstances of the discovery were but vague- 
ly known. The skeleton was met with in a deposit, the loess, 
which is known to be of quaternary age; there was no evidence 
to show how it came there. Consequently, not only was its exact 
age justly and properly declared to be a matter of doubt; but 
those who, on scientific or other grounds, were inclined to minimise 
its importance could put forth plausible speculations about its 
nature which do not look so well under the light thrown by a more 
advanced science of Anthropology. It could be and it was sug- 
gested that the Neanderthal skeleton was that of a strayed idiot; 
that the characters of the skull were the result of early synostosis 
or of late gout; and, in fact, any stick was good enough to beat 
the dog withal. 

As some writings of mine on the subject led to my occupation 
of a prominent position among the belaboured dogs of that day, 



ARYAN QUESTION AND PREHISTORIC MAN 183 

I have taken a mild interest in watching the gradual rehabilita- 
tion of my old friend of the Neanderthal among normal men, which 
has been going on of late years. It has come to be generally ad- 
mitted that his remarkable cranium is no more than a strongly- 
marked example of a type which occurs, not only among other 
prehistoric men, but is met with, sporadically, among the moderns; 
and that, after all, I was not so wrong as I ought to have been, 
when I indicated such points of similarity among the skulls found 
in our river-beds and among the native races of Australia. How- 
ever, doubts still clung about the geological age of the various 
deposits in which skulls of the Neanderthal type were subsequently 
found; and it was not until the year 1886 that two highly-com- 
petent observers, Messrs. Fraipont and Lohest, the one an anat- 
omist, the other a geologist, furnished us with evidence such as 
will bear severe criticism. At the mouth of a cave in the com- 
mune of Spy, in the Belgian province of Namur, Messrs. Fraipont 
and Lohest discovered two skeletons of the Neanderthal type; and 
the elaborate account of their investigations which they have pub- 
lished appears to me to leave little room for doubt that the men 
of Spy fabricated the palaeolithic implements, and were the con- 
temporaries of the characteristic quaternary quadrupeds, found 
with them. The anatomical characters of the skeletons bear out 
conclusions which are not flattering to the appearance of the 
owners. They were short of stature but powerfully built, with 
strong, curiously-curved thigh-bones, the lower ends of which are 
so fashioned that they must have walked with a bend at the 
knees. Their long depressed skulls had very strong brow ridges; 
their lower jaws, of brutal depth and solidity, sloped away from 
the teeth downwards and backwards, in consequence of the ab- 
sence of that especially characteristic feature of the higher type of 
man, the chin prominence. Thus these skulls are not only 
eminently " Neanderthaloid," but they supply the proof that the 
parts wanting in the original specimen harmonised in lowness 
of type with the rest. 

After a very full discussion of the anatomical characters of 
these skulls, M. Fraipont says: 

To sum up, we consider ourselves to be in a position to say that, hav- 
ing regard merely to the anatomical structure of the man of Spy, he 
possessed a greater number of pithecoid characters than any other race 
of mankind.* 

* Fraipont et Lohest. " La Race humaine de Neanderthal, ou de 
Canstatt, en Belgique," Archives de Biologic, 1886. 



184 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

And after enumerating these he continues; 

The other and much more numerous characters of the skull, of the 
trunk, and of the limbs seem to be all human. Between, the man of Spy 
and an existing anthropoid ape there lies an abyss. 

Now that is pleasant reading for me, because, in 1863, I com- 
mitted myself to the assertion that the Neanderthal skull was 
" the most pithecoid of human crania yet discovered," yet that 
" in no sense can the Neanderthal bones be regarded as the re- 
mains of a human being intermediate between men and apes " 
and " that the fossil remains of Man hitherto discovered do not 
seem to me to take us appreciably nearer to that lower pithecoid 
form, by the modification of which he has, probably, become what 
he is." 

As the evidence stood seven and twenty years ago, in fact, it 
would have been imprudent to assume that the Neanderthal skull 
was anything but a case of sporadic reversion. But, in my anx- 
iety not to overstate my case, I understated it. The Neander- 
thaloid race is " appreciably nearer," though the approximation is 
but slight. In the words of M. Fraipont: 

The distance which separates the man of Spy from the modern an- 
thropoid ape is undoubtedly enormous ; between the man of Spy and the 
Dryopithecus it is a little less. But we must be permitted to point 
out that if the man of the later quaternary age is the stock whence exist- 
ing races have sprung, he has travelled a very great way. 

From the data now obtained, it is permissible to believe that we shall 
be able to pursue the ancestral type of men and the anthropoid apes still 
further, perhaps as far as the eocene and even beyond.* 

These conclusions hold good whatever the age of the men of 
Spy; but they possess a peculiar interest if we admit, as I think 
on the evidence must be admitted, that these human fossils are 
of pleistocene age. For, after all due limitations, they give us 
some, however dim, insight into the rate of evolution of the hu- 
man species, and indicate that it has not taken place at a much 
faster or slower pace than that of other mammalia. And if that is 
so, we are warranted in the supposition that* the genus Homa, 
if not the species which the courtesy or the irony of naturalists 
has dubbed sapiens, was represented in pliocene, or even in mio- 

*" Where, then, must we look for primaeval Man? Was the oldest 
Homo sapiens, pliocene or miocene, or yet more ancient? In still older 
strata do the fossilised bones of an Ape more anthropoid or a Man more 
pithecoid than any yet known await the researches of some unborn 
palaeontologist? " p. 121 supra. 



ARYAN QUESTION AND PREHISTORIC MAN 185 

cene times. But I do not know by what osteological peculiarities 
it could be determined whether the pliocene, or miocene, man was 
sufficiently sapient to speak or not;* and whether, or not, he 
answered to the definition " rational animal " in any higher sense 
than a dog or an ape does. 

There is no reason to suppose that the genus Homo was con- 
fined to Europe in the pleistocene age; it is much more probable 
that this, like other mammalian genera of that period, was spread 
over a large extent of the surface of the globe. At that time, in 
fact, the climate of regions nearer the equator must have been 
far more favourable to the human species; and it is possible that, 
under such conditions, it may have attained a higher develop- 
ment than in the north. As to where the genus Homo originated, 
it is impossible to form even a probable guess. During the mio- 
cene epoch, one region of the present temperate zones would serve 
as well as another. The elder Agassiz long ago tried to prove that 
the well-marked areas of geographical distribution of mammals 
have their special kinds of men; and, though this doctrine cannot 
be made good to the extent which Agassiz maintained, yet the 
limitation of the Australian type to New Holland,t the approx- 
imate restriction of the negro type to Ultra-Saharal Africa, and 
the peculiar character of the population of Central and South 
America, are facts which bear strongly in favour of the conclusion 
that the causes which have influenced the distribution of mam- 
mals in general have powerfully affected that of man. 

Let it be supposed that the human remains from the caves 
of the Neanderthal and of Spy represent :the race, or one of the 
races, of men who inhabited Europe in the quaternary epoch, can 
any connection be traced between it and existing races? That is 
to say, do any of them exhibit characters approximating those of 
the Spy men or other examples of the Neanderthaloid race? Put 
in the latter form, I think that the question may be safely an- 
swered in the affirmative. Skulls do occasionally approach the 
Neanderthaloid type, among both the brunet and the blond long- 
head races. For the former, I pointed out the resemblance, long 
ago, in some of the Irish river-bed skulls. For the latter, evi- 
dence of various kinds may be adduced; but I prefer to cite the 
authority of one of the most accomplished and cautious of living 
anthropologists. Professor Virchow was led, by historical eon- 

* I am perplexed by the importance attached by some to the presence 
or absence of the so-called " genial " elevations. Does any one suppose 
that the existence of the genio-hyo-glossus muscle, which plays so large 
a part in the movements of the tongue, depends on that of these eleva- 
tions? 

[t Unless I am right in extending it to Hindostan and even further 
west.— 1894.1 



186 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 

siderations, to think that the Teutonic type, if it still remained 
pure and undefiled anywhere, should be discoverable among the 
Frisians, in their ancient island homes on the North German 
coast, remote from the great movements of nations. In their tall 
stature and blond complexion the Frisians fulfilled expectation; 
but their skulls differed in some, respects from those of the neigh- 
bouring blond long-heads. The depression, or flattening (accom- 
panied by a slight increase in breadth), which occurs occasionally 
among the latter, is regular and characteristic among the Frisians ; 
and, in other respects, the Frisian skull unmistakably approaches 
the Neanderthal and Spy type.* The fact that this resemblance 
exists is of none the less importance because the proper inter- 
pretation of it is not yet clear. It may be taken to be a pretty 
sure indication of the physiological continuity of the blond long- 
heads with the pleistocene Neanderthaloid men. But this con- 
tinuity may have been brought about in two ways. The blond 
long-heads may exhibit one of the lines of evolution of the men 
of the Neanderthaloid type. Or, the Frisians may be the result 
of the admixture of the blood long-heads with Neanderthaloid 
men ; whose remains have been found at Canstatt and at Gibraltar, 
as well as at Spy and in the valley of the Neander ; and who, there- 
fore, seem, at one time, to have occupied a considerable area in 
Western Europe. The same alternatives present themselves when 
Neanderthaloid characters appear in skulls of other races. If 
these characters belong to a stage in the development of the hu- 
man species, antecedent to the differentiation of any of the exist- 
ing races, we may expect to find them in the lowest of these races, 
all over the world, and in the early stages of all races. I have 
already referred to the remarkable similarity of the skulls of 
certain tribes of native Australians to the Neanderthal skull; and 
I may add, that the wide differences in height between the skulls 
of different tribes of Australians afford a parallel to the differences 
in altitude between the skulls of the men of Spy and those of the 
grave rows of. North Germany. Neanderthaloid features are to 
be met with, not only in ancient long skulls; those of the ancient 
broad-headed people entombed at Borreby in Denmark have been 
often noted. 

Beckoned by centuries, the remoteness of the quaternary, or 
pleistocene, age from our own is immense, and it is difficult to 
form an adequate notion of its duration. Undoubtedly there is 

♦ Virchow Beitrdge zur physischen Anthropologie der DeutscJien (Ahh. 
der Koniglichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 1876). See 
particularly p. 238 for the full recognition of the Neanderthaloid char- 
acters of Frisian skulls and of the ethnological significance of the 
similarity. 



ARYAN QUESTION AND PREHISTORIC MAN 187 

an abysmal difference between the Neanderthaloid race and the 
comely Kving specimens of the blond long-heads with whom we 
are familiar. But the abyss of time between the period at which 
North Europe was first covered with ice, when savages pursued 
mammoths and scratched their portraits with sharp stones in cen- 
tral France, and the present day, ever widens as we learn more 
about the events which bridge it. And, if the differences between 
the Neanderthaloid men and ourselves could be divided into as 
many parts as that time contains centuries, the progress from part 
to part would probably be almost imperceptible. 

THE END. 



INDEX. 



African cannibalism, 42-44 
American aborigines, skull of, 117 
physical peculiarities of, 132, 

133 
Anthropoid apes, natural history 

of, 1-44 
Aryan question and prehistoric 

man, 157-187 
Aryans, cradle of the race, 174 
Australian native, skull of, 117 
physical peculiarities of, 130 

Baboon, skull of, 112 
Beaver, skull of, 112 
Biology, classification in, 53 
Brachycephalic and dolichocephalic 

skulls, 110 
Brain of man, compared with 

brain of apes, 75 
Bushmen, characteristics of, 136 

Caesar, describes the races of 
Britain, 148 

Cannibalism, African, in 16th cen- 
tury, 42^4 

Celtic a branch of the Aryan 
tongue, 155 

Chimpanzee, 20, 34-36 

Climate, changes characteristics of 
races, 142 

Cradle of Aryan race, 159 

Cranial capacity of apes and man, 
76 

Cymric, the dialect of Britain, 153 

Dark-haired race, place of in 

Europe, 164 
Darwin's origin of species, 144 
Development, importance of the 

study of, 47 
Dog, development of, 48-51 

Eastern Asia, natives of, 134 
Engis, caves of, 90-91-97 

its teachings, 119 
Engihoul, human remains from, 94 
Esquimaux, physical peculiarities 

of, 133 
Ethnology, methods and results of, 

123-147 
British, some fixed points of, 

147-156 



189 



European languages allied to the 
Sanskrit, 157 

Fair-haired race, prevalence of in 

Europe, 164, 165 
Fossil remains of man, 90-122 

Gaelic language spoken in early 
Britain, 153 

Gauls and Germans, similar peo- 
ples, 149 

Gibbon, the, 20-26 

Gorilla, 20, 36-41 

Gorilla and man, relative propor- 
tions, 56 

Hands and feet of man, varied ca- 
pacities of, 68 

Hands and feet of a gorilla com- 
pared, 71 

Human body, development of, 51- 
53 

Human ovum, 52 

Kooloo, the, 42 

Languages, changes in, 127, 128 
Laplanders of Mongolian stock, 134 
Lemurs, teeth of, 67 
skull of, 112 

Man-like apes, 1-44 

Man's relation to lower animals, 

45-89 
Man originates in a germ, 51 

appearance in Western Eu- 
rope, 139 
and gorilla compared, 56-89 
fossil remains of, 90-122 
Marmosets, teeth of, 66 
Mediterranean countries, inhabit- 
ants of, 135 
Mental development, 46 
Monogenists, theory of, 141 
Maori, skull of, 132 

Neanderthal, skull of, 90, 97-108 
Nead-skull, its teachings, 119, 182, 

183 
Negro, skull of, 111 

characteristics of, 136 



190 



IITDEX 



Negrito, physical peculiarities of, 
131 

Orang-utan, 20, 26-34 

Pelvis, difference of between man 

and ape, 113 
Piiilology, the foundation of eth- 
nological history, 125, 126 
Pile-dwelling peoples, language, 154 
Pleistocene epoch, man in, 181 
Polygenists, theory of, 143 
Prehistoric man and the Aryan 
question, 157-187 

St. Hilaire, Geoffroy, quoted, 94 
Sarmation hypothesis of man's 
origin, 159, 173, 175 



Schaaffhausen, on the Neanderthal 

skull, 97-103 
Schmerling's description of the 

skull, 91-93 
Sepulchral tumuli in Siberia, 177 
Skull of man compared to apes, 60 
Skulls, human, how they differ, 110 
Soap, invented by the Gauls, 150 

Tacitus describes British races, 147 
Tasmania, natives of, 132 
Teeth, difference of in man and a 

gorilla, 64 
Teutonic languages imported into 

Britain, 153 
dialects of the Aryan tongue, 

155 

Wallace, travels in Africa, 20 



mmmmmmmmmummimmaim 




cienceani. uucatton 



ESSAYS 



By Thomas H. Huxley 



€Dition he %nxt 




NEW YORK 

J. A. HILL AND COMPANY 

MCMIV 



CONTENTS 



Page 
I 

Joseph Pkiestley 1 

(An Address delivered on the occasion of the presenta- 
tion of a statue of Priestley to the town of Bir- 
mingham) 

II 

On the Educational Value of the Natural History Sciences . . 21 
(An Address delivered in S. Martin's Hall) 

III 
Emancipation — Black and White 86 

IV 

A Liberal Education ; and Where to Find it 41 

(An Address to the South London Working Men's 
College) 

V 

Scientific Education : Notes of an After-Dinner Speech 59 

(Liverpool Philomathic Society) 

VI 

Science and Culture 72 

(An Address delivered at the opening of Sir Josiah 
Mason's Science College, Birmingham) 

VII 

On Science and Art in Relation to Education 86 

(An Address to the members of the Liverpool Institu- 
tion) 

VIII 

Universities : Actual and Ideal , , , , 101 

(Rectorial' Address, Aberdeen) 

iii 



iv CONTENTS 

IX 

Address on University Education 125 

(Delivered at the opening of the Johns Hopkins Univer- 
sity, Baltimore) 

X 

On the Study of Biology 139 

(A Lecture in connection with the Loan Collection of 
Scientific Apparatus, South Kensington Museum) 

XI 

On Elementary Instruction in Physiology 156 

XII 

On Medical Education 161 

(An Address to the students of the Faculty of Medi- 
cine in University College, London) 

XIII 
The State and the Medical Profession 171 

XIV 

The Connection of the Biological Sciences vs^ith Medicine. . . 183 

(An Address to the International Medical Congress) 

XV 

The School Boards : What They Can Do, and What They 

May Do 198 

XVI 
Technical Education 215 

XVII 

Address on Behalf of the National Association for the Pro- 
motion OF Technical Education 227 



SCIENCE AND EDUCATION. 

I. 
JOSEPH PKIESTLEY. 

IF the man to perpetuate whose memory we have this day raised 
a statue had been asked on what part of his busy life's work 
he set the highest value, he would undoubtedly have pointed 
to his voluminous contributions to theology. In season and out 
of season, he was the steadfast champion of that hypothesis re- 
specting the Divine nature which is termed Unitarianism by its 
friends and Socinianism by its foes. Regardless of odds, he was 
ready to do battle with all comers in that cause; and if no ad- 
versaries entered the lists, he would sally forth to seek them. 

To this, his highest ideal of duty, Joseph Priestley sacrificed the 
vulgar prizes of life, which, assuredly, were within easy reach of a 
man of his singular energy and varied abilities. For this object 
he put aside, as of secondary importance, those scientific investi- 
gations which he loved so well, and in which he showed himself so 
competent to enlarge the boundaries of natural knowledge and 
to win fame. In this cause he not only cheerfully suffered obloquy 
from the bigoted and the unthinking, and came within sight of 
martyrdom; but bore with that which is much harder to be borne 
than all these, the unfeigned astonishment and hardly disguised 
contempt of a brilliant society, composed of men whose sympathy 
and esteem must have been most dear to him, and to whom it was 
simply incomprehensible that a philosopher should seriously oc- 
cupy himself with any form of Christianity. 

It appears to me that the man who, setting before himself such 
an ideal of life, acted up to it consistently, is worthy of the deepest 
respect, whatever opinion may be entertained as to the real value 
of the tenets which he so zealously propagated and defended. 

But I am sure that I speak not only for myself, but for all this 
assemblage, when I say that our purpose to-day is to do honour, 
not to Priestley, the Unitarian divine, but to Priestley, the fear- 
less defender of rational freedom in thought and in action: to 
Priestley, the philosophic thinker; to that Priestley who held a 

1 



2 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

foremost place among "the swift runners who hand over the lamp 
of life," and transmit from one generation to another the fire 
kindled, in the childhood of the world, at the Promethean altar of 
Science. 

The main incidents of Priestley's life are so well known that I 
need dwell upon them at no great length. 

Born in 1733, at Fieldhead, near Leeds, and brought up among 
Calvinists of the straitest orthodoxy, the boy's striking natural 
ability led to his being devoted to the profession of a minister 
of religion; and, in 1752, he was sent to the Dissenting Academy 
at Daventry — an institution which authority left undisturbed, 
though its existence contravened the law. The teachers under 
whose instruction and influence the young man came at Daven- 
try, carried out to the letter the injunction to " try all things : 
hold fast that which is good," and encouraged the discussion of 
every imaginable proposition with complete freedom, the leading , 
professors taking opposite sides; a discipline which, admirable as 
it may be from a purely scientific point of view, would seem to be 
calculated to make acute, rather than sound, divines. Priestley 
tells us, in his " Autobiography," that he generally found him- 
self on the unorthodox side: and, as he grew older, and his fac- 
ulties attained their maturity, this native tendency towards 
heterodoxy grew with his growth and strengthened with his 
strength. He passed from Calvinism to Arianism; and finally, in 
middle life, landed in that very broad form of Unitarianism by 
which his craving after a credible and consistent theory of things 
was satisfied. 

On leaving Daventry Priestley became minister of a congrega- 
tion, first at Needham Market, and secondly at ISTantwich; but 
whether on account of his heterodox opinions, or of the stuttering 
which impeded his expression of them in the pulpit, little success 
attended his efforts in this capacity. In 1761, a career much more 
suited to his abilities became open to him. He was appointed 
" tutor in the languages " in the Dissenting Academy at Warring- 
ton, in which capacity, besides giving three courses of lectures, he 
taught Latin, Greek, French, and Italian, and read lectures on- the 
theory of language and universal grammar, on oratory, philosoph- 
ical criticism, and civil law. And it is interesting to observe that, 
as a teacher, he encouraged and cherished in those whom he in- 
structed freedom which he had enjoyed, in his own student days, 
at Daventry. One of his pupils tells us that, 

"At the conclusion of his lecture, he always encouraged his students 
to express their sentiments relative to the subject of it, and to urge any 



JOSEPH PRIESTLEY 3 

objections to what he had delivered, without reserve. It pleased him 
when any one commenced such a conversation. In order to excite the 
freest discussion, he occasionally invited the students to drink tea with 
him, in order to canvass the subjects of his lectures. I do not recollect 
that he ever showed the least displeasure at the strongest objections that 
were made to what he delivered, but I distinctly remember the smile of 
approbation with which he usually received them ; nor did he fail to point 
out, in a very encouraging manner, the ingenuity or force of any re- 
marks that were made, when they merited these characters. His object, 
as well as Dr. Aikin's, was to engage the students to examine and decide 
for themselves, uninfluenced by the sentiments of any other persons." 

It would be difficult to give a better description of a model teacher 
than that conveyed in these words. 

From his earliest days, Priestley had shown a strong bent to- 
wards the study of nature; and his brother Timothy tells us that 
the boy put spiders into bottles, to see how long they would live 
in the same air — a curious anticipation of the investigations of 
his later years. At Nantwich, where he set up a school, Priestley 
informs us that he bought an air pump, an electrical machine, and 
other instruments, in the use of which he instructed his scholars. 
But he does not seem to have devoted himself seriously to physical 
science until 1766, when he had the great good fortune to meet 
Benjamin Pranklin, whose friendship he ever afterwards enjoyed. 
Encouraged by Franklin, he wrote a " History of Electricity," 
which was published in 1767, and appears to have met with con- 
siderable success. 

In the same year, Priestley left Warrington to become the 
minister of a congregation at Leeds; and, here, happening to live 
next door to a public brewery, as he says, 

" I, at first, amused myself with making experiments on the fixed air 
which I found ready-made in the process of fermentation. When I 
removed from that house I was under the necessity of making fixed air 
for myself; and one experiment leading to another, as I have distinctly 
and faithfully noted in my various publications on the subject, I by 
degrees contrived a convenient apparatus for the purpose, but of the 
cheapest kind. 

" When I began these experiments I knew very little of chemistry, and 
had, in a manner, no idea on the subject before I attended a course of 
chemical lectures, delivered in the Academy at Warrington, by Dr. Turner 
of Liverpool. But I have often thought that, upon the whole, this cir- 
cumstance was no disadvantage to me ; as, in this situation, I was led 
to devise an apparatus and processes of my own, adapted to my peculiar 
views ; whereas, if I had been previously accustomed to the usual chemi- 
cal processes, I should not have so easily thought of any other, and 
without new modes of operation, I should hardly have discovered any- 
thing materially new." 



4 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

The first outcome of Priestley's chemical work, published in 
1Y72, was of a very practical character. He discovered the way of 
impregnating water with an excess of " fixed air," or carbonic 
acid, and thereby producing what we now know as " soda water " 
— a service to naturally, and still more to artificially, thirsty 
souls, which those whose parched throats and hot heads are cooled 
by morning draughts of that beverage, cannot too gratefully ac- 
knowledge. In the same year, Priestley communicated the ex- 
tensive series of observations which his industry and ingenuity 
had accumulated, in the course of four years, to the Royal So- 
ciety, under the title of " Observations on Different Kinds of Air " 
' — a memoir which was justly regarded of so much merit and im- 
portance, that the Society at once conferred upon the author the 
highest distinction in their power, by awarding him the Copley 
Medal. 

In 1771 a proposal was made to Priestley to accompany Captain 
Cook in his second voyage to the South Seas. He accepted it, and 
his congregation agreed to pay an assistant to supply his place 
during his absence. But the appointment lay in the hands of the 
Board of Longitude, of which certain clergymen were members; 
and whether these worthy ecclesiastics feared that Priestley's 
presence among the ship's company might expose His Majesty's 
sloop Besolution to the fate which aforetime befell a certain ship 
that went from Joppa to Tarshish; or whether they were alarmed 
lest a Socinian should undermine that piety which, in the days 
of Conunodore Trunnion, so strikingly characterised sailors, does 
not appear ; but, at any rate, they objected to Priestley " on ac- 
count of his religious principles," and appointed the two Porsters, 
whose " religious principles," if they had been known to these well- 
meaning but not far-sighted persons, would probably have sur- 
prised them'. 

In 1772 another proposal was made to Priestley. Lord Shel- 
burne, desiring a " literary companion," had been brought into 
communication with Priestley by the good ofiices of a friend of 
both. Dr. Price; and offered him the nominal post of librarian, 
with a good house and appointments, and an annuity in case of 
the termination of the engagement. Priestley accepted the offer, 
and remained with Lord Shelburne for seven years, sometimes 
residing at Oalne, sometimes travelling abroad with the Earl. 

Why the connection terminated has never been exactly known; 
but it is certain that Lord Shelburne behaved with the utmost 
consideration and kindness towards Priestley; that he fulfilled 
his engagements to the letter; and that, at a later period, he ex- 
pressed a desire that Priestley should return to his old footing in 



JOSEPH PRIESTLEY 5 

his house. Probably enough, the politician, aspiring to the highest 
offices in the State, may have found the position of the protector 
of a man who was being denounced all over the country as an 
infidel and an atheist somewhat embarrassing. In fact, a passage 
in Priestley's " Autobiography " on the occasion of the publica- 
tion of his "Disquisitions relating to Matter and Spirit," which 
took place in 1777, indicates pretty clearly the state of the case : — 

"(126) It being probable that this publication would be unpopular, 
and might be means of bringing odium on my patron, several attempts 
were made by his friends, though none by himself, to dissuade me from 
persisting in it. But being, as I thought, engaged in the cause of im- 
portant truth, I proceeded without regard to any consequences, assuring 
them that this publication should not be injurious to his lordship." 

It is not unreasonable to suppose that his lordship, as a keen, 
practical man of the world, did not derive much satisfaction from 
this assurance. The " evident marks of dissatisfaction " which 
Priestley says he first perceived in his patron in 1778, may well 
have arisen from the peer's not unnatural uneasiness as to what 
his domesticated, but not tamed, philosopher might write next, and 
what storm might thereby be brought down on his own head; and 
it speaks very highly for Lord Shelburne's delicacy that, in the 
midst of such perplexities, he made not the least attempt to in- 
terfere with Priestley's freedom of action. In 1780, however, he 
intimated to Dr. Price that he should be glad to establish Priestley 
on his Irish estates : the suggestion was interpreted, as Lord 
Shelburne probably intended it should be, and Priestley left him, 
the annuity of £150 a year, which had been promised in view of 
such a contingency, being punctually paid. 

After leaving Calne, Priestley spent some little time in London, 
and then, having settled in Birmingham at the desire of his 
brother-in-law, he was soon invited to become the minister of 
a large congregation. This settlement Priestley considered, at the 
time, to be " the happiest event of his life." And well he might 
think so; for it gave him competence and leisure; placed him 
within reach of the best makers of apparatus of the day; made 
him a member of that remarkable " Lunar Society," at whose 
meetings he could exchange thoughts with such men as Watt, 
Wedgwood, Darwin, and Boulton; and threw open to him the 
pleasant house of the Galtons of Barr, where these men, and others 
of less note, formed a society of exceptional charm and intelli- 
gence 

But these halcyon days were ended by a bitter storm. The 
French Revolution broke out. An electric shock ran through the 



6 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

nations; whatever there was of corrupt and retrograde, and, at the 
same time, a great deal of what there was of best and noblest, in 
European society shuddered at the outburst of long-pent-up so- 
cial fires. Men's feelings were excited in a way that we, in this 
generation, can hardly comprehend. Party wrath and virulence 
were expressed in a manner unparalleled, and it is to be hoped im- 
possible, in our times; and Priestley and his friends were held up 
to public scorn, even in Parliament, as fomenters of sedition. A 
" Church-and-King " cry was raised against the Liberal Dis- 
senters; and, in Birmingham, it was intensified and specially di- 
rected towards Priestley by a local controversy, in which he had 
engaged with his usual vigour. In 1791, the celebration of the 
second anniversary of the taking of the Bastile.by a public din- 
ner, with which Priestley had nothing whatever to do, gave the 
signal to the loyal and pious mob, who, unchecked, and indeed to 
some extent encouraged, by those who were responsible for order, 
had the town at their mercy for three days. The chapels and 
houses of the leading Dissenters were wrecked, and Priestley and 
his family had to fly for their lives, leaving library, apparatus, 
papers, and all their possessions, a prey to the flames. 

Priestley never returned to Birmingham. He bore the out- 
rages and losses inflicted upon him with extreme patience and 
sweetness,* and betook himself to London. But even his scientific 
colleagues gave him a cold shoulder; and though he was elected 
minister of a congregation at Hackney, he felt his position to be 
insecure, and finally determined on emigrating to the United 
States. He landed in America in 1794; lived quietly with his 
sons at Northumberland, in Pennsylvania, where his posterity still 
flourish; and, clear-headed and busy to the last, died on the 
6th of Pebruary, 1804. 

Such were the conditions under which Joseph Priestley did 
the work which lay before him, and then, as the Norse Sagas say, 
went out of the story. The work itself was of the most varied 
kind. No human interest was without its attraction for Priestley, 
and few men have ever had so many irons in the fire at once ; but, 
though he may have burned his fingers a little, very few who 
have tried that operation have burned their fingers so little. He 
made admirable discoveries in science; his philosophical treatises 
are still well worth reading; his political works are full of in- 

* Even Mrs. Priestley, who might be forgiven for regarding fhe 
destroyers of her household gods with some asperity, contents herself, 
in writing to Mrs. Barbauld, with the sarcasm that the Birmingham 
people " will scarcely find so many respectable characters, a second 
time, to make a bonfire of." 



JOSEPH PRIESTLEY ? 

siglit and replete with the spirit of freedom; and while all these 
sparks flew off from his anvil, the controversial hanuner rained 
a hail of blows on orthodox priest and bishop. While thus en- 
gaged, the kindly, cheerful doctor felt no more wrath or un- 
charitableness towards his opponents than a smith does towards 
his iron. But if the iron could only speak ! — and the priests 
and bishops took the point of view of the iron. 

No doubt what Priestley's friends repeatedly urged upon him — 
that he would have escaped the heavier trials of hicj life and won 
more for the advancement of knowledge, if he had confined him- 
self to his scientific pursuits and let his fellowmen go their way 
— was true. But it seems to have been Priestley's feeling that he 
was a man and a citizen before he was a philosopher, and that 
the duties of the two former positions are at least as imperative 
as those of the latter. Moreover, there are men (and I think 
Priestley was one of them) to whom the satisfaction of throwing 
down a triumphant fallacy is as great as that which attends the 
discovery of a new truth; who feel better satisfied with the gov- 
ernment of the world, when they have been helping Providence 
by knocking an imposture on the head; and who care even more 
for freedom of thought than for mere advance of knowledge. 
These •men are the Carnots who organise victory for truth, and 
they are, at least, as important as the generals who visibly fight 
her battles in the field. 

Priestley's reputation as a man of science rests upon his numer- 
ous and important contributions to the chemistry of gaseous 
bodies; and to form a just estimate of the value of his work — of 
the extent to which it advanced the knowledge of fact and the 
development of sound theoretical views — we must reflect what 
chemistry was in the first half of the eighteenth century. 

The vast science which now passes under that name had no 
existence. Air, water, and fire were still counted among the 
elemental bodies ; and though Van Helmont, a century before, had 
distinguished different kinds of air as gas veniosum and gas 
$ylvestre, and Boyle and Hales had experimentally defined the 
physical properties of air, and discriminated some of the various 
kinds of aeriform bodies, no one suspected the existence of the 
numerous totally distinct gaseous elements which are now known, 
or dreamed that the air we breathe and the water we drink are 
compounds of gaseous elements. 

But, in 1754, a young Scotch physician. Dr. Black, made the 
first clearing in this tangled backwood of knowledge. And it 
gives one a wonderful impression of the juvenility of scientific 
chemistry to think that Lord Brougham, whom so many of us 



S SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

recollect, attended Black's lectures when he was a student in 
Edinburgh. Black's researches gave the world the novel and 
startling conception of a gas that was a permanently elastic fluid 
like air, but that differed from common air in being much heavier, 
very poisonous, and in having the properties of an acid, capable of 
neutralising the strongest alkalies; and it took the world some 
time to become accustomed to the notion. 

A dozen years later, one of the most sagacious and accurate 
investigators who has adorned this, or any other, country, Henry 
Cavendish, published a memoir in the " Philosophical Transac- 
tions," in which he deals not only with the " fixed air " (now 
called carbonic acid or carbonic anhydride) of Black, but with 
" inflammable air," or what we now term hydrogen. 

By the rigorous application of weight and measure to all his 
processes. Cavendish implied the belief subsequently formulated 
by Lavoisier, that, in chemical processes, matter is neither created 
nor destroyed, and indicated the path along which all future 
explorers must travel. Nor did he himself halt until this path 
led him, in 1784, to the brilliant and fundamental discovery that 
water is composed of two gases united in fixed and constant 
proportions. 

It is a trying ordeal for any man to be compared with Black 
and Cavendish, and Priestley cannot be said to stand on their 
level. Nevertheless his achievements are not only great in them- 
selves, but truly wonderful, if we consider the disadvantages un- 
der which he laboured. Without the careful scientific training 
of Black, without the leisure and appliances secured by the 
wealth of Cavendish, he scaled the walls of science as so many 
Englishmen have done before and since his day; and trusting to 
mother wit to supply the place of training, and to ingenuity to 
create apparatus out of washing tubs, he discovered more new 
gases than all his predecessors put together had done. He laid 
the -foundations of gas analysis; he discovered the complementary 
actions of animal and vegetable life upon the constituents of the 
atmosphere; and, finally, he crowned his work, this day one hun- 
dred years ago, by the discovery of that "pure dephlogisticated 
air " to which the French chemists subsequently gave the name of 
oxygen. Its importance, as the constituent of the atmosphere 
which disappears in the processes of respiration and combustion, 
and is restored by green plants growing in sunshine, was proved 
somewhat later. For these brilliant discoveries, the Boyal So- 
ciety elected Priestley a fellow and gave him their medal, while 
the Academies of Paris and St. Petersburg conferred their mem- 
bership upon him. Edinburgh had made him an honorary doc- 



JOSEPH PRIESTLEY 9 

tor of laws at an early period of his career; but, I need hardly 
add, that a man of Priestley's opinions received no recognition 
from the universities of his own country. 

That Priestley's contributions to the knowledge of chemical 
fact were of the greatest importance, and that they richly deserve 
all the praise that has been awarded to them, is unquestionable; 
but it must, at the same time, be admitted that he had no com- 
prehension of the deeper significance of his work; and, so far from 
contributing anything to the theory of the facts which he dis- 
covered, or assisting in their rational explanation, his influence 
to the end of his life was warmly exerted in favour of error. 
From first to last, he was a stiff adherent of the phlogiston doc- 
trine which was prevalent when his studies commenced; and, by 
a curious irony of fate, the man who by the discovery of what 
he called " dephlogisticated air " furnished the essential datum 
for the true theory of combustion, of respiration, and of the com- 
position of water, to the end of his days fought against the in- 
evitable corollaries from his own labours. His last scientific 
work, published in 1800, bears the title, ""^ The Doctrine of Phlogis- 
ton established, and that of the Composition of Water refuted." 

When Priestley commenced his studies, the current belief was, 
that atmospheric air, freed from accidental impurities, is a sim- 
ple elementary substance, indestructible and unalterable, as water 
was supposed to be. When a combustible burned, or when an 
animal breathed in air, it was supposed that a substance, " phlogis- 
ton," the matter of heat and light, passed from the burning or 
breathing body into it, and destroyed its powers of supporting life 
and combustion. Thus, air contained in a vessel in which a 
lighted candle had gone out, or a living animal had breathed until 
it could breathe no longer, was called " phlogisticated." The same 
result was supposed to be brought about by the addition of what 
Priestley called " nitrous gas " to common air. 

In the course of his researches, Priestley found that the quantity 
of common air which can thus become "phlogisticated," amounts 
to about one-fifth the volume of the whole quantity submitted to 
experiment. Hence it appeared that common air consists, to the 
extent of four-fifths of its volume, of air which is already 
" phlogisticated " ; while the other fifth is free from phlogiston, or 
" dephlogisticated." On the other hand, Priestley found that air 
" phlogisticated " by combustion or respiration could be " dephlog- 
isticated," or have the properties of pure common air restored to 
it, by the action of gi-een plants in sunshine. The question, 
therefore, would naturally arise — as common air can be wholly 
phlogisticated by combustion, and converted into a substance 



10 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

whicli will no longer support combustion, is it possible to get air 
that shall be less phlogisticated than common air, and conse- 
quently support combustion better than common air does? 

Now, Priestley says that, in 1774, the possibility of obtaining air 
less phlogisticated than common air had not occurred to him. 
But in pursuing his experiments on the evolution of air from 
various bodies by means of heat, it happened that on the 1st of 
August, 1774, he threw the heat of the sun, by means of a large 
burning glass which he had recently obtained, upon a substance 
which was then called mercurius calcinatus per se, and which is 
commonly known as red precipitate. 

" I presently found that, by means of this lens, air was expelled from 
it very readily. Having got about three or four times as much as the 
bulk of my materials, I admitted water to it, and found that it was 
not imbibed by it. But what surprised me more than I can well express, 
was that a candle burned in this air with a remarkably vigorous flame, 
very much like that enlarged flame with which a candle burns in nitrous 
air, exposed to iron or lime of sulphur ; but as I had got nothing like this 
remarkable appearance from any kind of air besides this particular modi- 
fication of nitrous air, and I knew no nitrous acid was used in the 
preparation of mercurius calcinatus, I was utterly at a loss how to 
account for it. 

" In this case also, though I did not give sufficient attention to the 
circumstance at that time, the flame of the candle, besides being larger, 
burned with more splendour and heat than in that species of nitrous air ; 
and a piece of red-hot wood sparkled in it, exactly like paper dipped in a 
solution of nitre, and it consumed very fast — an experiment which I had 
never thought of trying with nitrous air." 

Priestley obtained the same sort of air from red lead, but, as 
he says himself, he remained in ignorance of the properties of 
this new kind of air for seven months, or until March 1775, when 
he found that the new air behaved with " nitrous gas " in the same 
way as the dephlogisticated part of common air does; but that, 
instead of being diminished to four-fifths, it almost completely 
vanished, and, therefore, showed itself to be " between five and 
six times as good as the best common air I have ever met with." 
As this new air thus appeared to be completely free from phlogis- 
ton, Priestley called it " dephlogisticated air." 

What was the nature of this air ? Priestley found that the same 
kind of air was to be obtained by moistening with the spirit of 
nitre (which he terms nitrous acid) any kind of earth that is free 
from phlogiston, and applying heat; and consequently he says: 
" There remained no doubt on my mind but that the atmos- 
pherical air, or the thing that we breathe, consists of the nitrous 



JOSEPH PRIESTLEY 11 

acid and earth with so much phlogiston as is necessary to its 
elasticity, and likewise so much more as is required to bring it 
from its state of perfect purity to the mean condition in which we 

find itr 

Priestley's view, in fact, is that atmospheric air is a kind of 
saltpetre, in which the potash is replaced by some unknown earth. 
And in speculating on the manner in which saltpetre is formed, 
he enunciates the hypothesis, " that nitre is formed by a real de- 
composition of the air itself, the hases that are presented to it 
having, in such circumstances, a nearer affinity with the spirit of 
nitre than that kind of earth with which it is united in the at- 
mosphere."* 

It would have been hard for the most ingenious person to have 
wandered farther from the truth than Priestley does in this hypo- 
thesis; and, though Lavoisier undoubtedly treated Priestley very 
ill, and pretended to have discovered dephlogisticated air, or 
oxygen, as he called it, independently, we can almost forgive him 
when we reflect how different were the ideas which the great 
French chemist attached to the body which Priestley discovered. 

They are like two navigators of whom the first sees a new 
country, but takes clouds for mountains and mirage for lowlands; 
while the second determines its length and breadth, and lays down 
on a chart its exact place, so that, thenceforth, it serves as a 
guide to his successors, and becomes a secure outpost whence new 
explorations may be pushed. 

Nevertheless, as Priestley himself somewhere remarks, the first 
object of physical science is to ascertain facts, and the service 
which he rendered to chemistry by the definite establishment of a 
large number of new and fundamentally important facts, is such 
as to entitle him to a very high place among the fathers of chem- 
ical science. 

It is difficult to say whether Priestley's philosophical, political, 
or theological views were most responsible for the bitter hatred 
which was borne to him by a large body of his countrymen, and 
which found its expression in the malignant insinuations in which 
Burke, to his everlasting shame, indulged in the House of Com- 
mons. 

Without containing much that will be new to the readers of 
Hobbs, Spinoza, Collins, Hume, and Hartley, and, indeed, while 
making no pretensions to originality, Priestley's " Disquisitions re- 
lating to Matter and Spirit," and his " Doctrine of Philosophical 
Necessity Illustrated," are among the most powerful, clear, and un- 

* The italics are Priestley's own. 



12 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

flinching expositions of materialism and necessarianism whicli 
exist in the English language, and are still well worth reading. 

Priestley denied the freedom of the will in the sense of its self- 
determination ; he denied the existence of a soul distinct from the 
body; and as a natural consequence, he denied the natural im- 
mortality of man. 

In relation to these matters English opinion, a century ago, was 
very much what it is now. 

A man may be a necessarian without incurring graver re- 
proach than that implied in being called a gloomy fanatic, neces- 
sarianism, though very shocking, having a note of Calvinistic 
orthodoxy; but, if a man is a materialist; or, if good authorities 
say he is and must be so, in spite of his assertion to the contrary; 
or, if he acknowledge himself unable to see good reasons for be- 
lieving in the natural immortality of man, respectable folks look 
upon him as an unsafe neighbor of a cashbox, as an actual or 
potential sensualist, the more virtuous in outward seeming, the 
more certainly loaded with secret " grave personal sins." 

Nevertheless, it is as certain as anything can be, that Joseph 
Priestley was no gloomy fanatic, but as cheerful and kindly a 
soul as ever breathed, the idol of children; a man who was hated 
only by those who did not know him, and who charmed away 
the bitterest prejudices in personal intercourse; a man who never 
lost a friend, and the best testimony to whose worth is the gener- 
ous and tender warmth with which his many friends vied with 
one another in rendering him substantial help, in all the crises 
of his career. 

The unspotted purity of Priestley's life, the strictness of his per- 
formance of every duty, his transparent sincerity, the unostenta- 
tious and deep-seated piety which breathes through all his corre- 
spondence, are in themselves a sufficient refutation of the 
hypothesis, invented by bigots to cover uncharitableness, that such 
opinions as his must arise from moral defects. And his statue will 
do as good service as the brazen image that was set upon a pole 
before the Israelites, if those who have been bitten by the fiery 
serpents of sectarian hatred, which still haunt this wilderness of a 
world, are made whole by looking' upon the image of a heretic 
who was yet a saint. 

Though Priestley did not believe in the natural immortality of 
man, he held with an almost naiVe realism that man would be 
raised from the dead by a direct exertion of the power of God, and 
thenceforward be immortal. And it may be as well for those who 
may be shocked by this doctrine to know that views, substantially 
identical with Priestley's, have been advocated, since his time, by 



JOSEPH PRIESTLEY 13 

two prelates of the Anglican Church : by Dr. Whately, Archbishop 
of Dublin, in his well-known " Essays " ; and by Dr. Courtenay, 
Bishop of Kingston in Jamaica, the first edition of whose re- 
markable book " On the Puture States," dedicated to Archbishop 
Whately, was published in 1843 and the second in 1857. Accord- 
ing to Bishop Courtenay, 

" The death of the body will cause a cessation of all the activity of the 
mind by way of natural consequence ; to continue for ever unless the 
Creator should interfere." 

And again: — 

" The natural end of human existence is the * first death,' the dream- 
less slumber of the grave, wherein man lies spellbound, soul and body, 
under the dominion of sin and death — that whatever modes of con- 
scious existence, whatever future state of ' life ' or of ' torment ' beyond 
Hades are reserved for man, are results of our blessed Lord's victory 
over sin and death ; that the resurrection of the dead must be preliminary 
to their entrance into either of the future states, and that the nature 
and even existence of these states, and even the mere fact that there is 
a futurity of consciousness, can be known only through God's revelation 
of Himself in the Person and the Gospel of His Son." — P. 389. 

And now hear Priestley: — 

"Man, according to this system (of materialism), is no more than we 
now see of him. His being commences at the time of his conception, or 
perhaps at an earlier period. The corporeal and mental faculties, in 
being in the same substance, grow, ripen, and decay together ; and when- 
ever the system is dissolved, it continues in a state of dissolution till it 
shall please that Almighty Being who called it into existence to restore 
it to life again." — " Matter and Spirit," p. 49. 

And again : — 

" The doctrine of the Scripture is, that God made man of the dust of 
the ground, and by simply animating this organized matter, made man 
that living percipient and intelligent being that he is. According to 
Revelation, death is a state of rest and insensibility, and our only 
though sure hope of a future life is founded on the doctrine of the 
resurrection of the whole man at some distant period ; this assurance 
being sufficiently confirmed to us both by the evident tokens of a Divine 
commission attending the persons who delivered the doctrine, and espe- 
cially by the actual resurrection of Jesus Christ, which is more authen- 
tically attested than any other fact in history." — Hid., p. 247. 

We all know that " a saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn. ;" 
but it is not yet admitted that the views which are consistent 



14 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

witli sucli saintliness in lawn, become diabolical when Held by a 
mere dissenter.* 

I am not here either to defend or to attack Priestley's philo* 
sophical views, and I cannot say that I am personally disposed to 
attach much value to episcopal authority in philosophical ques- 
tions; but it seems right to call attention to the fact, that those of 
Priestley's opinions which have brought most odium upon him 
have been openly promulgated, without challenge, by persons 
occupying the highest positions in the State Church. 

I must confess that what interests me most about Priestley's 
materialism, is the evidence that he saw dimly the seed of de- 
struction which such materialism carries within its own bosom. 
In the course of his reading for his " History of Discoveries re- 
lating to Vision, Light, and Colours," he had come upon the 
speculations of Boscovich and Michell, and had been led to admit 
the sufficiently obvious truth that our knowledge of matter is a 
knowledge of its properties . and that of its substance — if it have 
a substance — we know nothing. And this led to the further ad- 
mission that, so far as we can know, there may be no difference 
between the substance of matter and the substance of spirit 
("Disquisitions." p. 16). A step farther would have shown 
Priestley that his materialism was, essentially, very little different 
from the Idealism of his contemporary, the Bishop of Cloyne. 

As Priestley's philosophy is mainly a clear statement of the 
views of the deeper thinkers of his day, so are his political con- 
ceptions based upon those of Locke. Locke's aphorism that " the 
end of government is the good of mankind," is thus expanded 
by Priestley: — 

" It must necessarily be understood, therefore, whether it be expressed 
or not, that all people live in society for their mutual advantage; so 
that the good and happiness of the members, that is, of the majority of 
the members, of any state, is the great standard by which everything re- 
lating to that state must finally be determined." 



* Not only is Priestley at one with Bishop Courtenay in this matter, 
but with Hartley and Bonnet, both of them stout champions of Chris- 
tianity. Moreover, Archbishop Whately's essay is little better than an 
expansion of the first paragraph of Hume's famous essay on the im- 
mortality of the Soul :— " By the mere light of reason it seems ditticult 
'to prove the immortality of the soul; the arguments for it are com- 
monly derived either from metaphysical topics, or moral, or physical. 
But it is in reality the Gospel, and the Gospel aloue, that has brought 
life and immortality to light." It is impossible to imagine that a man 
of Whately's tastes and acquirements had not read Hume or Hartley, 
though he refers to neither. 



JOSEPH PRIESTLEY 15 

The little sentence here interpolated, '' that is, of the majority 
of the members of any state," appears to be that passage which 
suggested to Bentham, according to his own acknowledgment, 
the famous "greatest happiness" formula, which by substituting 
"happiness" for "good," has converted a noble into an ignoble 
principle. But I do not call to mind that there is any utterance 
in Locke quite so outspoken as the following passage in the 
" Essay on the First Principles of Government." After laying 
down as " a fundamental maxim in all Governments," the proposi- 
tion that " kings, senators, and nobles " are " the servants of the 
public," Priestley goes on to say: — 

" But in the largest states, if the abuses of the government should 
at any time be great and manifest; if the servants of the people, for- 
getting their masters and their masters' interest, should pursue a sepa- 
rate one of their own ; if, instead of considering that they are made for 
the people, they should consider the people as made for them ; if the 
oppressions and violation of right should be great, flagrant, and uni- 
versally resented ; if the tyrannical governors should have no friends but 
a few sycophants, who had long preyed upon the vitals of their fellow- 
citizens, and who might be expected to desert a government whenever 
their interests should be detached from it: if, in consequence of these 
circumstances, it should become manifest that the risk which would be 
run in attempting a revolution would be trifling, and the evils which 
might be apprehended from it were far less than those which were actu- 
ally suffered and which were daily increasing ; in the name of God, I ask, 
what principles are those which ought to restrain an injured and insulted 
people from asserting their natural rights, and from changing or even 
punishing their governors — that is, their servants — who had abused 
their trust, or from altering the whole form of their government, if it 
appeared to be of a structure so liable to abuse? " 

As a Dissenter, subject to the operation of the Corporation and 
Test Acts, and as a Unitarian excluded from the benefit of the 
Toleration Act, it is not surprising to find that Priestley had very 
definite opinions about Ecclesiastical Establishments; the only 
wonder is that these opinions were so moderate as the following 
passages show them to have been: — 

" Ecclesiastical authority may have been necessary in the infant state 
of society, and, for the same reason, it may perhaps continue to be, in 
some degree, necessary as long as society is imperfect; and therefore 
may not be entirely abolished till civil governments have arrived at a 
much greater degree of perfection. If, therefore, I were asked whether 
I should approve of the immediate dissolution of all the ecclesiastical 
establishments in Europe, I should answer, No. . . . Let experiment 
be first made of alterations, or, which is the same thing, of letter estab- 



16 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

lishments than the present. Let them be reformed in many essential 
articles, and then not thrown aside entirely till it be found by experience 
that no good can be made of them." 

Priestley goes on to suggest four such reforms of a capital 
nature : — 

" 1. Let the Articles of Faith to be subscribed by candidates for the 
ministry be greatly reduced. In the formulary of the Church of England, 
might not thirty-eight out of the thirty-nine be very well spared? It is a 
reproach to any Christian establishment if every man cannot claim the 
benefit of it who can say that he believes in the religion of Jesus Christ 
as it is set forth in the New Testament. You say the terms are so 
general that even Deists would quibble and insinuate themselves. I 
answer that all the articles which are subscribed at present by no means 
exclude Deists who will prevaricate ; and upon this scheme you would 
at least exclude fewer honest men." 

The second reform suggested is the equalisation, in proportion 
to work done, of the stipends of the clergy; the third, the ex- 
clusion of the Bishops from Parliament; and the fourth, com- 
plete toleration, so that every man may enjoy the rights of a citi- 
zen, and be qualified to serve his country, whether he belong to 
the Established Church or not. 

Opinions such as those I have quoted, respecting the duties and 
the responsibilities of governors, are the commonplaces of modern 
Liberalism; and Priestley's views on Ecclesiastical Establishments 
would, I fear, meet with but a cool reception, as altogether too 
conservative, from a large proportion of the lineal descendants of 
the people who taught their children to cry " Damn Priestley ;" 
and with that love for the practical application of science which is 
the source of the greatness of Birmingham, tried to set fire to the 
doctor's house with sparks from his own electrical machine; there- 
by giving the man they called an incendiary and raiser of sedition 
against Church and King, an appropriately experimental illus- 
tration of the nature of arson and riot. 

If I have succeeded in putting before you the main features*, 
of Priestley's work, its value will become apparent when we com- 
pare the condition of the English nation, as he knew it, with its 
present state. 

The fact that France has been for eighty-five years trying, with- 
out much success, to right herself after the great storm of the 
Revolution, is not unfrequently cited among us as an indication 
of some inherent incapacity for self-government among the 
French people. I think, however, that Englishmen who argue 





JOSEPJI PRIE8TLKV. 



/'Jngraring of S/dlue erected in llir citi/ of 
Birmingham, Enyland. 



JOSEPH PRIESTLEY 17 

thus, forget that, from the meeting of the Long Parliament in 
1640, to the last Stuart rebellion in 1745, is a hundred and five 
years, and that, in the middle of the last century, we had but just 
safely freed ourselves from our Bourbons and all that they repre- 
sented. The corruption of our state was as bad as that of the 
Second Empire. Bribery was the instrument of government, and 
peculation its reward. Four-fifths of the seats in the House of 
Commons were more or less openly dealt with as property. A min- 
ister had to consider the state of the vote market, and the sov- 
ereign secured a sufficiency of "king's friends" by payments al- 
lotted with retail, rather than royal, sagacity. 

Barefaced and brutal immorality and. intemperance pervaded 
the land, from the highest to the lowest classes of society. The 
Established Church was torpid, as far as it was not a scandal; 
but those who dissented from it came within the meshes of the 
Act of Uniformity, the Test Act, and the Corporation Act. By 
law, such a man as Priestley, being a Unitarian, could neither 
teach nor preach, and was liable to ruinous fines and long im- 
prisonment.* In those days the guns that were pointed by the 
Church against the Dissenters were shotted. The law was a cess- 
pool of iniquity and cruelty. Adam Smith was a new prophet 
whom few regarded, and commerce was hampered by idiotic im- 
pediments, and ruined by still more absurd help, on the part of 
government. 

Birmingham, though already the centre of a considerable in- 
dustry, was a mere village as compared with its present extent. 
People who travelled went about armed, by reason of the abun- 
dance of highwaymen and the paucity and inefficiency of the 
police. Stage coaches had not reached Birmingham, and it took 
three days to get to London. Even canals were a recent and 
much opposed invention. 

Newton had laid the foundation of a mechanical conception of 
the physical universe: Hartley, putting a modern face upon an- 
cient materialism, had extended that mechanical conception to 
psychology; Linnaeus and Haller were beginning to introduce 
method and order into the chaotic accumulation of biological 
facts. But those parts of physical science which deal with heat, 
electricity, and magnetism, and above all, chemistry, in the modern 
sense, can hardly be said to have had an existence. No one knew 
that two of the old elemental bodies, air and water, are com- 
pounds, and that a third, fire, is not a substance but a motion. 
The great industries that have grown out of the applications of 

* In 1732 Doddridge was cited for teaching without the Bishop's 
leave, at Northampton, 



18 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

modern scientific discoveries had no existence, and the man who 
should have foretold their coming into being in the days of his son, 
would have been regarded as a mad enthusiast. 

In common with many other excellent persons, Priestley be- 
lieved that man is capable of reaching, and will eventually attain, 
perfection. If the temperature of space presented no obstacle, I 
should be glad to entertain the same idea; but judging from the 
past progress of our species, I am afraid that the globe will have 
cooled down so far, before the advent of this natural millennium, 
that we shall be, at best, perfected Esquimaux. Tor all practical 
purposes, however, it is enough that man may visibly improve his 
condition in the course of a century or so. And, if the picture of 
the state of things in Priestley's time, which I have just drawn, 
have any pretence to accuracy, I think it must be admitted that 
there has been a considerable change for the better. 

I need not advert to the well-worn topic of material advance- 
ment, in a place in which the very stones testify to that progress 
— in the town of Watt and of Boulton. I will only remark, in 
passing, that material advancement has its share in moral and 
intellectual progress. Becky Sharp's acute remark that it is not 
difficult to be virtuous on ten thousand a year, has its application 
to nations; and it is futile to expect a hungry and squalid popula- 
tion to be anything but violent and gross. But as regards other 
than material welfare, although perfection is not yet in sight — 
even from the mast-head — it is surely true that things are much 
better than they were. 

Take the upper and middle classes as a whole, and it may be 
said that open immorality and gross intemperance have vanished. 
Pour and six bottle men are as extinct as the dodo. Women of 
good repute do not gamble, and talk modelled upon Dean Swift's 
" Art of Polite Conversation " would be tolerated in no decent 
kitchen. 

Members of the legislature are not to be bought; and con- 
stituents are awakening to the fact that votes must not be sold — 
even for such trifles as rabbits and tea and cake. Political power 
has passed into the hands of the masses of the people. Those 
whom Priestley calls their servants have recognized their position, 
and have requested the master to be so good as to go to school and 
fit himself for the administration of his property. In ordinary 
life, no civil disability attaches to any one on theological grounds, 
and high offices of the state are open to Papist, Jew, and Sec- 
ularist. 

Whatever men's opinions as to the policy of Establishment, no 
one can hesitate to admit that the clergy of the Church are men. 



JOSEPH PRIESTLEY 19 

of pure life and conversation, zealous in the discharge of their 
duties; and at present, apparently, more bent on prosecuting one 
another than on meddling with Dissenters. Theology itself has 
broadened so much, that Anglican divines put forward doctrines 
more liberal than those of Priestley; and, in our state-supported 
churches, one listener may hear a sermon to which Bossuet might 
have given his approbation, while another may hear a discourse in 
which Socrates would find nothing new. 

But great as these changes may be, they sink into insignificance 
beside the progress of physical science, whether we consider the 
improvement of methods of investigation, or the increase in bulk 
of solid knowledge. Consider that the labours of Laplace, of 
Young, of Davy, and of Faraday; of Cuvier, of Lamarck, and of 
Robert Brown; of Von Baer, and of Schwann; of Smith and of 
Hutton, have all been carried on since Priestley discovered oxygen ; 
and consider that they are now things of the past, concealed by the 
industry of those who have built upon them, as the first founders 
of a coral reef are hidden beneath the life's work of their succes- 
sors; consider that the methods of physical science are slowly 
spreading into all investigations, and that proofs as valid as those 
required by her canons of investigation are being demanded of all 
doctrines which ask for men's assent; and you will have a faint 
image of the astounding difference in this respect between the 
nineteenth century and the eighteenth. 

If we ask what is the deeper meaning of all these vast changes, 
I think there can be but one reply. They mean that reason has 
asserted and exercised her primacy over all provinces of human 
activity; that ecclesiastical authority has been relegated to its 
proper place; that the good of the governed has been finally rec- 
ognized as the end of government, and the complete responsibility 
of governors to the people as its means; and that the dependence 
of natural phenomena in general on the laws of action of what we 
call matter has become an axiom. 

But it was to bring these things about, and to enforce the recog- 
nition of these truths, that Joseph Priestley laboured. If the 
nineteenth century is other and better than the eighteenth, it 
is, in great measure, to him, and to such men as he, that we owe 
the change. If the twentieth century is to be better than the 
nineteenth, it will be because there are among us men who walk 
in Priestley's footsteps. 

Such men are not those whom their own generation delights to 
honour ; such men, in fact, rarely trouble themselves about honour, 
but ask, in another spirit than Falstaff's, " What is honour ? 
Who hath it ? He that died o' Wednesday." But whether Priest- 



20 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

ley's lot be theirs, and a future generation, in justice and in grat- 
itude, set up their statues; or whether their names and fame 
are blotted out from remembrance, their work will live as long as 
time endures. To all eternity, the sum of truth and right will 
have been increased by their means; to all eternity, falsehood and 
injustice will be the weaker because they have lived. 



yALUE OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCES 21 



II. 

ON THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF THE NATURAL 
HISTOEY SCIENCES. 

THE subject to which I have to beg your attention during the 
ensuing hour is " The Relation of Physiological Science to 
other branches of Knowledge." 

Had circumstances permitted of the delivery, in their strict log- 
ical order, of that series of discourses of which the present lec- 
ture is a member, I should have preceded my friend and col- 
league Mr, Henf rey, who addressed you on Monday last ; but while, 
for the sake of that order, I must beg you to suppose that this 
discussion of the Educational bearings of Biology in general does 
precede that of Special Zoology and Botany, I am rejoiced to be 
able to take advantage of the light thus already thrown upon the 
tendency and methods of Physiological Science. 

Regarding Physiological Science, then, in its widest sense — 
as the equivalent of Biology — the Science of Individual Life — 
we have to consider in succession : 

1. Its position and scope as a branch of knowledge. 

2. Its value as a means of mental discipline. 

3. Its worth as practical information. 
And lastly, 

4. At what period it may best be made a branch of Education. 
Our conclusions on the first of these heads must depend, of 

course, upon the nature of the subject-matter of Biology; and I 
think a few preliminary considerations will place before you in a 
clear light the vast difference which exists between the living 
bodies with which Physiological science is concerned, and the re- 
mainder of the universe ; — between the phgenomena of Number 
and Space, of Physical and of Chemical force, on the one hand, 
and those of Life on the other. 

The mathematician, the physicist, and the chemist contemplate 
things in a condition of rest; they look upon a -state of equilibrium 
as that to which all bodies normally tend. 

The mathematician does not suppose that a quantity will alter, 
or that a given point in space will change its direction with regard 



22 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

to another point, spontaneously. And it is the same with the 
that the act of falling was not the result of any power inherent 
physicist. When Newton saw the apple fall he concluded at once 
that the act of falling was not the result of any power inherent 
in the apple, but that it was the result of the action of some- 
thing else on the apple. In a similar manner, all physical force 
is regarded as the disturbance of an equilibrium to which things 
tended before its exertion, — to which they will tend again after its 
cessation. 

The chemist equally regards chemical change in a body as the 
effect of the action of something external to the body changed. A 
chemical compound once formed would persist for ever, if no alter- 
ation took place in surrounding conditions. 

But to the student of Life the aspect of Nature is reversed. 
Here, incessant, and, so far as we know, spontaneous change is 
the rule, rest the exception — the anomaly to be accounted for. 
Living things have no inertia, and tend to no equilibrium. 

Permit me, however, to give more force and clearness to these 
somewhat abstract considerations by an illustration or two. 

Imagine a vessel full of water, at the ordinary temperature, 
in an atmosphere saturated with vapour. The quantity and the 
figure of that water will not change, so far as we know, for ever. 

Suppose a lump of gold be thrown into the vessel — motion 
and disturbance of figure exactly proportional to the momentum 
of the gold will take place. But after a time the effects of this 
disturbance will subside — equilibrium will be restored, and the 
water will return to its passive state. 

Expose the water to cold — it will solidify — and in so doing 
its particles will arrange themselves in definite crystalline shapes. 
But once formed, these crystals change no further. 

Again, substitute for the lump of gold some substance capable 
of entering into chemical relations with the water: — say, a mass 
of that substance which is called " protein " — the substance of 
flesh : — a very considerable disturbance of equilibrium will take 
place — all sorts of chemical compositions and decompositions will 
occur; but in the end, as before, the result will be the resumption 
of a condition of rest. 

Instead of such a mass of dead protein, however, take a particle 
of living protein — one of those minute microscopic living things 
which throng our pools, and are known as Infusoria — such a crea- 
ture, for instance, as an Euglena, and place it in our vessel of 
water. It is a round mass provided with a long filament, and 
except in this peculiarity of shape, presents no appreciable physical 
or chemical difference whereby it might be distinguished from 
the particle of dead protein. 



VALUE OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCES 23 

But the difference in the phaenomena to which it will give rise is 
immense: in the first place it will develop a vast quantity of 
physical force — cleaving the water in all directions with consider- 
able rapidity by means of the vibrations of the long filament 
of cilium. 

Nor is the amount of chemical energy which the little creature 
possesses less striking. It is a perfect laboratory in itself, and it 
will act and react upon the water and the matters contained there- 
in; converting them into new compounds resembling its own sub- 
stance, and at the same time giving up portions of its own sub- 
stance which have become effete. 

Furthermore, the Euglena will increase in size; but this in- 
crease is by no means unlimited, as the increase of a crystal might 
be. After it has grown to a certain extent it divides, and each 
portion assumes the form of the original, and proceeds to repeat 
the process of growth and division. 

Nor is this all. For after a series of such divisions and sub- 
divisions, these minute points assume a totally new form, lose 
their long tails — round themselves, and secrete a sort of envelope 
or box, in which they remain shut up for a time, eventually to 
resume, directly or indirectly, their primitive mode of existence. 

Now, so far as we know, there is no natural limit to the exist- 
ence of the Euglena, or of any other living germ. A living spe- 
cies once launched into existence tends to live for ever. 

Consider how widely different this living particle is from the 
dead atoms with which the physicist and chemist have to do! 

The particle of gold falls to the bottom and rests — the particle 
of dead protein decomposes and disappears — it also rests : but the 
living protein mass neither tends to exhaustion of its forces nor 
to any permanency of form, but is essentially distinguished as a 
disturber of equilibrium so far as force is concerned, — as under- 
going continual metamorphosis and change, in point of form. 

Tendency to equilibrium of force and to permanency of form, 
then, are the characters of that portion of the universe which does 
not live — the domain of the chemist and physicist. 

Tendency to disturb existing equilibrium — to take on forms 
which succeed one another in definite cycles — is the character of 
the living world. 

What is the cause of this wonderful difference between the 
dead particle and the living particle of matter appearing in other 
respects identical? that difference to which we give the name of 
Life? 

I, for one, cannot tell you. It may be that, by and by, philoso- 
phers will discover some higher laws of which the facts of life are 



24: SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

particular cases — very possibly they will find out some bond be- 
tween physico-chemical phsenomena on the one hand, and vital 
phsenomena on the other. At present, however, we assuredly 
know of none; and I think we shall exercise a wise humility in 
confessing that, for us at least, this successive assumption of 
different states — (external conditions remaining the same) — this 
spontaneity of action — If I may use the term which implies 
more than I would be answerable for — which constitutes so 
vast and plain a practical distinction between living bodies and 
those which do not live, is an ultimate fact; indicating as such, 
the existence of a broad line of demarcation between the subject- 
matter of Biological and that of all other sciences. 

For I would have it understood that this simple Euglena is the 
type of all living things, so far as the distinction between these 
and inert matter is concerned. That cycle of changes, which is 
constituted by perhaps not more than two or three steps in the 
Euglena, is as clearly manifested in the multitudinous stages 
through which the germ of an oak or of a man passes. Whatever 
forms the Living Being may take on, whether simple or complex, 
production, growth, reproduction, are the phsenomena which dis- 
tinguish it from that which does not live. 

If this be true, it is clear that the student, in passing from 
the physico-chemical to the physiological sciences, enters upon a 
totally new order of facts; and it will next be for us to consider 
how far these new facts involve new methods, or require a modi- 
fication of those with which he is already acquainted. Now a great 
deal is said about the peculiarity of the scientific method in 
general, and of the different methods which are pursued in the 
different sciences. The Mathematics are said to have one special 
method; Physics another. Biology a third, and so forth. For 
my own part, I must confess that I do not understand this phrase- 
ology. 

So far as I can arrive at any clear comprehension of the matter, 
Science is not, as many would seem to suppose, a modification of 
the black art, suited to the tastes of the nineteenth century, and 
flourishing mainly in consequence of the decay of the Inquisition. 

Science is, I believe, nothing but trained and organised com- 
mon sense, differing from the latter only as a veteran may differ 
from a raw recruit : and its methods differ from those of common 
sense only so far as the guardsman's cut and thrust differ from 
the manner in which a savage wields his club. The primary 
power is the same in each case, and perhaps the untutored sav- 
age has the more brawny arm of the two. The real advantage lies 
in the point and polish of the swordsman's weapon ; in the trained 



VALUE OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCES 25 

eye quick to spy out the weakness of the adversary; in the ready 
hand prompt to follow it on the instant. But, after all, the sword 
exercise is only the hewing and poking of the clubman developed 
and perfected. 

So, the vast results obtained by Science are won by no mystical 
faculties, by no mental processes, other than those which are prac- 
tised by every one of us, in the humblest and meanest affairs of 
life. A detective policeman discovers a burglar from the marks 
made by his shoe, by a mental process identical with that by 
which Cuvier restored the extinct animals of Montmartre from 
fragments of their bones. Nor does that process of induction 
and deduction by which a lady, finding a stain of a peculiar 
kind upon her dress, concludes that somebody has upset the ink- 
stand thereon, differ in any way, in kind, from that by which 
Adams and Leverrier discovered a new planet. 

The man of science, in fact, simply uses with scrupulous exact- 
ness the methods which we all, habitually and at every moment, 
use carelessly; and the man of business must as much avail him- 
self of the scientific method — must be as truly a man of science 
— as the veriest bookworm of us all ; though I have no doubt that 
the man of business will find himself out to be a philosopher with 
as much surprise as M. Jourdain exhibited when he discovered 
that he had been all his life talking prose. If, however, there be 
no real difference between the methods of science and those of 
common life, it would seem, on the face of the matter, highly 
improbable that there should be any difference between the meth- 
ods of the different sciences; nevertheless, it is constantly taken 
for granted that there is a very wide difference between the 
Physiological and other sciences in point of method. 

In the first place it is said — and I take this point first, be- 
cause the imputation is too frequently admitted by Physiologists 
themselves — that Biology differs from the Physico-chemical and 
Mathematical sciences in being " inexact." 

Now, this phrase " inexact " must refer either to the methods 
or to the results of Physiological science. 

It cannot be correct to apply it to the methods; for, as I hope 
to show you by and by, these are identical in all sciences, and 
whatever is true of Physiological method is true of Physical and 
Mathematical method. 

Is it then the results of Biological science which are " inexact " ? 
I think not. If I say that respiration is performed by the lungs; 
that digestion is effected in the stomach ; that the eye is the organ 
of sight; that the jaws of a vertebrated animal never open side- 
ways, but always up and down ; while those of an annulose animal 



26 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

always open sideways, and never np and down — I am enumerating 
propositions whicli are as exact as anything in Enclid. How then 
has this notion of the inexactness of Biological science come about ? 
I believe from two causes: first, because in consequence of the 
great complexity of the science and the multitude of interfering 
conditions, we are very often only enabled to predict approximately 
what will occur under given circumstances ; and secondly, because, 
on account of the comparative youth of the Physiological sciences, 
a great many of their laws are still imperfectly worked out. But, 
in an educational point of view, it is most important to distin- 
guish between the essence of a science and the accidents which 
surround it ; and essentially, the methods and results of Physiology 
are as exact as those of Physics or Mathematics. 

It is said that the Physiological method is especially compara- 
tive * ; and this dictum also finds favour in the eyes of many. 
I should be sorry to suggest that the speculators on scientific 
classification have been misled by the accident of the name of one 
leading branch of Biology — Comparative Anatomy; but I would 
ask whether comparison, and that classification which is the 
result of comparison, are not the essence of every science what- 
soever! How is it possible to discover a relation of cause and 
effect of any kind without comparing a series of cases together 
in which the supposed cause and effect occur singly, or combined? 
So far from comparison being in any way peculiar to Biological 
science, it is, I think, the essence of every science. 

A speculative philosopher again tells us that the Biological 
sciences are distinguished by being sciences of observation and 
not of experiment ! f 

* " In the third place, we have to review the method of Comparison, 
which is so specially adapted to the study of living bodies, and by which, 
above all others, that study must be advanced. In Astronomy, this 
method is necessarily inapplicable ; and it is not till we arrive at Chem- 
istry that this third means of investigation can be used ; and then only 
in subordination to the two others. It is in the study, both statical and 
dynamical, of living bodies that it first acquires its full development ; 
and its use elsewhere can be only through its application here." — 
Comte's Positive Philosophy, translated by Miss Martineau. Vol. i. p. 
372. 

By what method does M. Comte suppose that the equality or in- 
equality of forces and quantities and the dissimilarity or similarity of 
forms — points of some slight importance not only in Astronomy and 
Physics, but even in Mathematics — are ascertained, if not by Compari- 
son? 

t " Proceeding to the second class of means. — Experiment cannot but 
be less and less decisive, in proportion to the complexity of the phse- 
nomena to be explored; and therefore we saw this resource to be less 
effectual in chemistry than in physics : and we now find that it is 
eminently useful in chemistry in comparison with physiology. In fact, 
the nature of the phwnomena seems to offer almost insurmountaUe im- 



VALUE OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCES 27 

Of all the strange assertions into which speculation without 
practical acquaintance with a subject may lead even an able 
man, I think this is the very strangest. Physiology not an ex- 
perimental science? Why, there is not a function of a single 
organ in the body which has not been determined wholly and 
solely by experiment? How did Harvey determine the nature 
of the circulation, except by experiment? How did Sir Charles 
Bell determine the functions of the roots of the spinal nerve, save 
by experiment? How do we know the use of a nerve at all, 
except by experiment? Nay, how do we know even that your 
eye is your seeing apparatus, unless you make the experiment of 
shutting it or that your ear is your hearing apparatus, unless you 
close it up and thereby discover that you become deaf? 

It would really be much more true to say that Physiology is the 
experimental science yar excellence of all sciences; that in which 
there is least to be learnt by mere observation, and that 
which affords the greatest field for the exercise of those faculties 
which characterise the experimental philosopher. I confess, if 
any one were to ask me for a model application of the logic of 
experiment, I should know no better work to put into his hands 
than Bernard's late Researches on the Functions of the Liver.* 

Not to give this lecture a too controversial tone, however, I 
must only advert to one more doctrine, held by a thinker of our 
own age and country, whose opinions are worthy of all respect. 
It is, that the Biological sciences differ from all others, inas- 
much as in them classification takes place by type and not by 
definition, t 

It is said, in short, that a natural-history class is not capable 
of being defined — that the class Bosaceae, for instance, or the 

pediments to any extensive and prolific application of such a Cfocedure 
in Mology." — Comte, vol. i. p. 367. 

M. Comte, as his manner is, contradicts himself two pages further 
on, but that will hardly relieve him from the responsibility of such a 
paragraph as the above. 

* Nouvelle Fonction du Foie considere comme organe producteur de 
matiere sucree chez VHomme et les Animaiiw, par M. Claude Bernard. 

t " Natural Groups given hy Type, not hy Definition 

The class is steadily fixed, though not precisely limited; it is given, 
though not circumscribed ; it is determined, not by a boundary-line 
without, but by a central point within ; not by what it strictly excludes, 
but what it eminently includes ; by an example, not by a precept ; in 
short, instead of Definition we have a Type for our director. A type 
is an example of any class, for instance, a species of a genus, which 
is considered as eminently possessing the characters of the class. All 
the species which have a greater affinity with this type-species than 
with any others, form the genus, and are ranged about it, deviating from 
it in various directions and different degrees." — Whewell, The Phi- 
losophy of the Inductive Sciences, vol. i. pp. 476, 477. 



28 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

class of Fishes, is not accurately and absolutely definable, inas- 
much as its members will present exceptions to every possible 
definition and that the members of the class are united together 
only by the circumstance that they are all more like some imagi- 
nary average rose or average fish, than they resemble anything else. 

But here, as before, I think the distinction has arisen entirely 
from confusing a transitory imperfection with an essential charac- 
ter. So long as our information concerning them is imperfect, 
we class all objects together according to resemblances which we 
feel, but cannot define; we group them round types, in short. 
Thus if you ask an ordinary person what kinds of animals there 
are, he will probably say, beasts, birds, reptiles, fishes, insects, &c. 
Ask him to define a beast from a reptile, and he cannot do it ; but 
he says, things like a cow or a horse are beasts, and things like 
a frog or a lizard are reptiles. You see he does class by type, 
and not by definition. But how does this classification differ from 
that of a scientific Zoologist? How does the meaning of the 
scientific class-name of " Mammalia " differ from the unscientific 
of " Beasts " ? 

Why, exactly because the former depends on a definition, the 
latter on a type. The class Mammalia is scientifically defined as 
" all animals which have a vertebrated skeleton and suckle their 
young." Here is no reference to type, but a definition rigorous 
enough for a geometrician. And such is the character which 
every scientific naturalist recognizes as that to which his classes 
must aspire — knowing, as he does, that classification by type 
is simply an acknowledgment of ignorance and a temporary device. 

So much in the way of negative argument as against the re- 
puted differences between Biological and other methods. No such 
differences, I believe, really exist. The subject-matter of Biolog- 
ical science is different from that of other sciences, but the methods 
of all are identical; and these methods are — 

1. Ohservation of facts — including under this head that arti- 
ficial observation which is called experiment. 

2. That process of tying up similar facts into bundles ticketed 
and ready for use, which is called Comparison and Classification, 
— the results of the process, the ticketed bundles, being named 
General propositions. 

3. Deduction, which takes us from the general proposition to 
facts again — teaches us, if I may so say, to anticipate from the 
ticket what is inside the bundle. And finally — 

4. Verification, which is the process of ascertaining whether, in 
point of fact, our anticipation is a correct one. 



VALUE OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCES 29 

Such are the methods of all science whatsoever; but perhaps 
you will permit me to give you an illustration of their employ- 
ment in the science of Life; and I will take as a special case the 
establishment of the doctrine of the Circulation of the Blood. 

In this case, simple ohservation yields us a knowledge of the ex- 
istence of the blood from some accidental haemorrhage, we will 
say; we may even grant that it informs us of the localisation 
of this blood in particular vessels, the heart, &c., from some ac- 
cidental cut or the like. It teaches also the existence of a pulse 
in various parts of the body, and acquaints us with the structure 
of the heart and vessels. 

Here, however, simple ohservation stops, and we must have re- 
course to experiment. 

You tie a vein, and you find that the blood accumulates on 
the side of the ligature opposite the heart. You tie an artery, 
and you find that the blood accumulates on the side near the 
heart. Open the chest, and you see the heart contracting with 
great force. Make openings into its principal cavities, and you 
will find that all the blood flows out, and no more pressure is 
exerted on either side of the arterial or venous ligature. 

Now all these facts, taken together, constitute the evidence that 
the blood is propelled by the heart through the arteries, and returns 
by the veins — that, in short, the blood circulates. 

Suppose our experiments and observations have been made 
on horses, then we group and ticket them into a general proposi- 
tion, thus : — all horses have a circulation of their Mood. 

Henceforward a horse is a sort of indication or label, telling us 
where we shall find a peculiar series of phsenomena called the 
circulation of the blood. 

Here is our general proposition, then. 

How, and when, are we justified in making our next step — a 
deduction from it? 

Suppose our physiologist, whose experience is limited to horses, 
meets with a zebra for the first time, — will he suppose that this 
generalisation holds good for zebras also? 

That depends very much on his turn of mind. But we will 
suppose him to be a bold man. He will say, " The zebra is cer- 
tainly not a horse, but it is very like one, — so like, that it must be 
the ' ticket ' or mark of a blood-circulation also ; and I con- 
clude that the zebra has a circulation." 

That is a deduction, a very fair deduction, but by no means 
to be considered scientifically secure. This last quality in fact 
can only be given by verification — that is, by making a zebra 



30 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

the subject of all the experiments performed on the horse. Of 
course, in the present case, the deduction would be confirmed 
by this process of verification, and the result would be, not merely 
a positive widening of knowledge, but a fair increase of confidence 
in the truth of one's generalisations in other cases. 

Thus, having settled the point in the zebra and horse, our 
philosopher would have great confidence in the existence of 
a circulation in the ass. Nay, I fancy most persons would ex- 
cuse him, if in this case he did not take the trouble to go through 
the process of verification at all; and it would not be without a 
parallel in the history of the human mind, if our imaginary phys- 
iologist now maintained that he was acquainted with asinine 
circulation a priori. 

However, if I might impress any caution upon your minds, it is, 
the utterly conditional nature of all our knowledge, — the danger 
of neglecting the process of verification under any circumstances; 
and the film upon which we rest, the moment our deductions 
carry us beyond the reach of this great process of verification. 
There is no better instance of this than is afforded by the history 
of our knowledge of the circulation of the blood in the animal 
kingdom until the year 1824. In every animal possessing a circu- 
lation at all, which had been observed up to that time, the cur- 
rent of the blood was known to take one definite and invariable 
direction. Now, there is a class of animals called Ascidians, 
which possess a heart and a circulation, and up to the period of 
which I speak, no one would have dreamt of questioning the 
propriety of the deduction, that these creatures have a circulation 
in one direction ; nor would any one have thought it worth while to 
verify the point. But, in that year, M. von Hasselt, happening 
to examine a transparent animal of this class, found, to his 
infinite surprise, that after the heart had beat a certain number 
of times, it stopped, and then began beating the opposite way — 
so as to reverse the course of the current, which returned by and 
by to its original direction. 

I have myself timed the heart of these little animals. I found 
it as regular as possible in its periods of reversal: and I know no 
spectacle in the animal kingdom more wonderful than that which 
it presents — all the more wonderful that to this day it remains 
an unique fact, peculiar to this class among the whole animated 
world. At the same time I know of no more striking case of the 
necessity of the verification of even those deductions which seem 
founded on the widest and safest inductions. 

Such are the methods of Biology — methods which are obviously 
identical with those of all other sciences, and therefore wholly 



VALUE OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCES 31 

incompetent to form the ground of any distinction between it and 
them."^ 

But I shall be asked at once, Do you mean to say that there is 
no difference between the habit of mind of a mathematician and 
that of a naturalist? Do you imagine that Laplace might have 
been put into the Jardin des Plantes, and Cuvier into the Observa- 
tory, with equal advantage to the progress of the sciences they 
professed ? 

To which I would reply, that nothing could be further from 
my thoughts. But different habits and various special tendencies 
of two sciences do not imply different methods. The mountaineer 
and the m,an of the plains have very different habits of progression, 
and each would be at a loss in the other's place ; but the method of 
progression, by putting one leg before the other, is the same in 
each case. Every step of each is a combination of a lift and a 
push ; but the mountaineer lifts more and the lowlander pushes 
more. And I think the case of two sciences resembles this. 

I do not question for a moment, that while the Mathematician is 
busy with deductions from general propositions, the Biologist is 
more especially occupied with observation, comparison, and those 
processes which lead to general propositions. All I wish to insist 
upon is, that this difference depends not on any fundamental dis- 
tinction in the sciences themselves, but on the accidents of their 
subject-matter, of their relative complexity, and consequent rela- 
tive perfection. 

The Mathematician deals with two properties of objects only, 
number and extension, and all the inductions he wants have been 
formed and finished ages ago. He is occupied now with nothing 
but deduction and verification. 

The Biologist deals with a vast number of properties of objects, 
and his inductions will not be completed, I fear, for ages to 
come; but when they are, his science will be as deductive and as 
exact as the Mathematics themselves. 

Such is the relation of Biology to those sciences which deal 
with objects having fewer properties than itself. But as the 
student, in reaching Biology, looks back upon sciences of a less 
complex and therefore more perfect nature; so, on the other hand, 
does he look forward to other more complex and less perfect 
branches of knowledge. Biology deals only with living beings 
as isolated things — treats only of the life of the individual: but 

* Save for the pleasure of doing so, I need hardly point out my 
obligations to Mr. J. S. Mill's 8pstem of Logic, in this view of scientific 
methods 



32 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

there is a higher division of science still, which considers living 
beings as aggregates — which deals with the relation of living 
beings one to another^ the science which observes men — whose 
experiments are made by nations one upon another, in battle-fields 
— whose general propositions are embodied in history, morality, 
and religion — whose deductions lead to our happiness or our 
misery — and whose verifications so often come too late, and 
serve only 

" To point a moral, or adorn a tale " — 

I mean the science of Society or Sociology. 

I think it is one of the grandest features of Biology, that it 
occupies this central position in human knowledge. There is no 
side of the human mind which physiological study leaves un- 
cultivated. Connected by innumerable ties with abstract science. 
Physiology is yet in the most intimate relation with humanity ; and 
by teaching us that law and order, and a definite scheme of de- 
velopment, regulate even the strangest and wildest manifestations 
of individual life, she prepares the student to look for a goal even 
amidst the erratic wanderings of mankind, and to believe that 
history offers something more than an entertaining chaos — a 
journal of a toilsome, tragi-comic march no wither. 

The preceding considerations have, I hope, served to indicate 
the replies which befit the first two of the questions which I set 
before you at starting, viz. What is the range and position of 
Physiological Science as a branch of knowledge, and what is its 
value as a means of mental discipline? 

Its subject-matter is a large moiety of the universe — its position 
is midway between the physico-chemical and the social sciences. 
Its value as a branch of discipline is partly that which it has in 
common with all sciences — the training and strengthening of 
common sense; partly that which is more peculiar to itself — the 
great exercise which it affords to the faculties of observation and 
comparison; and, I may add, the exactness of knowledge which it 
requires on the part of those among its votaries who desire to ex- 
tend its boundaries. 

If what has been said as to the position and scope of Biology 
be correct, our third question — What is the practical value of 
physiological instruction ? — might, one would think, be left to 
answer itself. 

On other grounds even, were mankind deserving of the title 
" rational," which they arrogate to themselves, there can be no 
question that they would consider, as the most necessary of all 
branches of instruction for themselves and for their children, that 



VALUE OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCES 33 

which, professes to acquaint them with the conditions of the 
existence they prize so highly — which teaches them how to avoid 
disease and to cherish health, in themselves and those who are 
dear to them. 

I am. addressing, I imagine, an audience of educated persons; 
and yet I dare venture to assert that, with the exception of those 
of my hearers who may chance to have received a medical educa- 
tion, there is not one who could tell me what is the meaning and 
use of an act which he performs a score of times every minute, 
and whose suspension would involve his immediate death ; — I 
mean the act of breathing — or who could state in precise terms 
why it is that a confined atmosphere is injurious to health. 

The practical value of Physiological knowledge! Why is it 
that educated men can be found to maintain that a slaughter- 
house in the midst of a great city is rather a good thing than 
otherwise ? — that mothers persist in exposing the largest possible 
amount of surface of their children to the cold^, by the absurd 
style of dress they adopt, and then marvel at the peculiar dispen- 
sation of Providence, which removes their infants by bronchitis 
and gastric fever ? Why is it that quackery rides rampant over the 
land ; and that not long ago, one of the largest public rooms in this 
great city could be filled by an audience gravely listening to the 
reverend expositor of the doctrine — that the simple physiological 
phsenomena known as spirit-rapping, table-turning, phreno-mag- 
netism, and I know not what other absurd and inappropriate 
names, are due to the direct and personal agency of Satan? 

Why is all this, except from the utter ignorance as to the sim- 
plest laws of their own animal life, which prevails among even the 
most highly educated persons in this country? 

But there are other branches of Biological Science, besides 
Physiology proper, whose practical influence, though less obvious, 
is not, as I believe, less certain. I have heard educated men speak 
with an ill-disguised contempt of the studies of the naturalist, 
and ask, not without a shrug, " What is the use of knowing all 
about these miserable animals — what bearing has it on human 
life?" 

I will endeavour to answer that question. I take it that all 
will admit there is definite Government of this universe — that its 
pleasures and pains are not scattered at random, but are distrib- 
uted in accordance with orderly and fixed laws, and that it is 
only in accordance with all we know of the rest of the world, that 
there should be an agreement between one portion of the sensitive 
creation and another in these matters. 

Surely then it interests us to know the lot of other animal 



34 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

creatures — however far below us, they are still the sole created 
things which share with us the capability of pleasure and the 
susceptibility to pain. 

I cannot but think that he who finds a certain proportion of 
pain and evil inseparably woven up in the life of the very worms, 
will bear his own share with more courage and submission; and 
will, at any rate, view with suspicion those weakly amiable theories 
of the Divine government, which would have us believe pain to be 
an oversight and a mistake, — to be corrected by and by. On the 
other hand, the predominance of happiness among living things — 
their lavish beauty — the secret and wonderful harmony which 
pervades them all, from the highest to the lowest, are equally 
striking refutations of that modern Manichean doctrine, which 
exhibits the world as a slave-mill, worked with many tears, for 
mere utilitarian ends. 

There is yet another way in which natural history may, I am 
convinced, take a profound hold upon practical life, — and that 
is, by its influence over our finer feelings, as the greatest of all 
sources of that i)leasure which is derivable from beauty. I do 
not pretend that natural-history knowledge, as such, can increase 
our sense of the beautiful in natural objects. I do not suppose 
that the dead soul of Peter Bell, of whom the great poet of 
nature says, — 

A primrose by the river's brim, 
A yellow primrose was to him, — 
And it was nothing more, — 

would have been a whit roused from its apathy by the informa- 
tion that the primrose is a Dicotyledonous Exogen, with a mono- 
petalous corolla and central placentation. But I advocate nat- 
ural-history knowledge from this point of view, because it would 
lead us to seeh the beauties of natural objects, instead of trust- 
ing to chance to force them on our attention. To a person unin- 
structed in natural history, his country or sea-side stroll is a walk 
through a gallery filled with wonderful works of art, nine-tenths of 
which have their faces turned to the wall. Teach him something 
of natural history, and you place in his hands a catalogue of those 
which are worth turning round. Surely our innocent pleasures 
are not. so abundant in this life, that we can afford to despise this 
or any other source of them. We should fear being banished 
for our neglect to that limbo, where the great Florentine tells 
us are those who, during this life, " wept when they might be 
joyful." 

But I shall be trespassing unwarrantably on your kindness, if I 



VALUE OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCES 35 

do not proceed at once to my last point — tlie time at which Physi- 
ological Science should first form a part of the Curriculum of 
Education. 

The distinction between the teaching of the facts of a science 
as instruction, and the teaching it systematically as knowledge, 
has already been placed before you in a previous lecture: and it 
appears to me that, as with other sciences, the common facts of 
Biology — the uses of parts of the body — the names and habits 
of the living creatures which surround us — may be taught with 
advantage to the youngest child. Indeed, the avidity of children 
for this kind of knowledge, and the comparative ease with which 
they 'retain it, is something quite marvellous. I doubt whether 
any toy would be so acceptable to young children as a vivarium 
of the same kind as, but of course on a smaller scale than, those 
admirable devices in the Zoological Gardens. 

On the other hand, systematic teaching in Biology cannot be 
attempted with success until the student has attained to a certain 
knowledge of physics and chemistry: for though the phsenomena 
of life are dependent neither on physical nor on chemical, but on 
vital forces, yet they result in all sorts of physical and chemical 
changes, which can only be judged by their own laws. 

And now to sum up in a few words the conclusions to which I 
hope you see reason to follow me. 

Biology needs no apologist when she demands a place — and a 
prominent place — in any scheme of education worthy of the 
name. Leave ou.t the Physiological sciences from your curric- 
ulum, and you launch the student into the world, undisciplined 
in that science whose subject-matter would best develop his pow- 
ers of observation; ignorant of facts of the deepest importance 
for his own and others' welfare; blind to the richest sources of 
beauty in God's creation; and unprovided with that belief in a 
living law, and an order manifesting itself in and through endless 
change and variety, which might serve to check and moderate that 
phase of despair through which, if he take an earnest interest 
in social problems, he will assuredly sooner or later pass. 

Finally, one word for myself. I have not hesitated to speak 
strongly where I have felt strongly; and I am but too conscious 
that the indicative and imperative moods have too often taken the 
place of the more becoming subjunctive and conditional. I feel, 
therefore, how necessary it is to beg you to forget the personality 
of him who has thus ventured to address you, and to consider 
only the truth or error in what has been said. 



36 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 



m. 

EMANCIPATION — BLACK AND WHITE. 

QUASHIE'S plaintive inquiry, "Am I not a man and a 
brother?" seems at last to have received its final reply — 
the recent decision of the fierce trial by battle on the 
other side of the Atlantic fully concurring with that long since 
delivered here in a more peaceful way. 

The question is settled; but even those who are most thorough- 
ly convinced that the doom is just, must see good grounds for re- 
pudiating half the arguments which have been employed by the 
winning side; and for doubting whether its ultimate results will 
embody the hopes of the victors, though they may more than 
realise the fears of the vanquished. It may be quite true that 
some negroes are better than some white men ; but no rational man, 
cognisant of the facts, believes that the average negro is the equal, 
still less the superior, of the average white man. And, if this be 
true, it is simply incredible that, when all his disabilities are re- 
moved, and our prognathous relative has a fair field and no favour, 
as well as no oppressor, he will be able to compete successfully with 
his bigger-brained and smaller-jawed rival, in a contest which is 
to be carried on by thoughts and not by bites. The highest places 
in the hierarchy of civilisation will assuredly not be within the 
reach of our dusky cousins, though it is by no means necessary 
that they should be restricted to the lowest. But whatever the 
position of stable equilibrium into which the laws of social gravita- 
tion may bring the negro, all responsibility for the result will 
henceforward lie between Nature and him. The white man may 
wash his hands of it, and the Caucasian conscience be void of re- 
proach for evermore. And this, if we look to the bottom of the 
matter, is the real justification for the abolition policy. 

The doctrine of equal natural rights may be an illogical de- 
lusion; emancipation may convert the slave from a well-fed ani- 
mal into a pauperised man; mankind may even have to do without 
cotton shirts; but all these evils must be faced if the moral law, 
that no human being can arbitrarily dominate over another with- 



EMANCIPATION — BLACK AND WHITE 37 

out grievous damage to his own nature, be, as many think, as 
readily demonstrable by experiment as any physical truth. If this 
be true, no slavery can be abolished without a double emancipa- 
tion, and the master will benefit by freedom more than the freed- 
man. 

The like considerations apply to all the other questions of eman- 
cipation which are at present stirring the world — the multi- 
farious demands that classes of mankind shall be relieved from 
restrictions imposed by the artifice of man, and not by the neces- 
sities of Nature. One of the most important, if not the most im- 
portant, of all these, is that which daily threatens to become the 
" irrepressible " woman question. What social and political rights 
have women? What ought they to be allowed, or not allowed, 
to do, be, and suffer? And as involved in, and underlying all 
these questions, how ought they to be educated? 

There are philogynists as fanatical as any " misogynists " who, 
reversing our antiquated notions, bid the man look upon the wom- 
an as the higher type of humanity; who ask us to regard the fe- 
male intellect as the clearer and the quicker, if not the stronger; 
who desire us to look up to the feminine moral sense as the purer 
and the nobler; and bid man abdicate his usurped sovereignty over 
Nature in favour of the female line. On the other hand, there are 
persons not to be outdone in all loyalty and just respect for wom- 
ankind, but by nature hard of head and haters of delusion, how- 
ever charming, who not only repudiate the new woman-worship 
which so many sentimentalists and some philosophers are desirous 
of setting up, but, carrying their audacity further, deny even the 
natural equality of the sexes. They assert, on the contrary, that 
in every excellent character, whether mental or physical, the aver- 
age woman is inferior to the average man, in the sense of having 
that character less in quantity and lower in quality. Tell these 
persons of the rapid perceptions and the instinctive intellectual 
insight of women, and they reply that the feminine mental pe- 
culiarities, which pass under these names, are merely the outcome 
of a greater impressibility to the superficial aspects of things, and 
of the absence of that restraint upon expression which, in 
men, is imposed by reflection and a sense of responsibility. Talk 
of the passive endurance of the weaker sex, and opponents of this 
kind remind you that Job was a man, and that, until quite recent 
times, patience and long-suffering were not counted among the 
specially feminine virtues. Claim passionate tenderness as es- 
pecially feminine, and the inquiry is made whether all the best 
love-poetry in existence (except, perhaps, the " Sonnets from the 
Portuguese") has not been written by men; whether the song 



38 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

which embodies the ideal of pure and tender passion — " Adel- 
aida " — was written by Frau Beethoven ; whether it was the 
Fornarina, or Kaphael, who painted the Sistine Madonna. Nay, 
we have known one such heretic go so far as to lay his hands upon 
the ark itself, so to speak, and to defend the startling paradox 
that, even in physical beauty, man is the superior. He admitted, 
indeed, that there was a brief period of early youth when it might 
be hard to say whether the prize should be awarded to the graceful 
undulations of the female figure, or the perfect balance and supple 
vigour of the male frame. But while our new Paris might hesi- 
tate between the youthful Bacchus and the Venus emerging from 
the foam, he averred that, when Venus and Bacchus had reached 
thirty, the point no longer admitted of a doubt; the male form 
having then attained its greatest nobility, while the female is far 
gone in decadence; and that, at this epoch, womanly beauty, so 
far as it is independent of grace or expression, is a question of 
drapery and accessories. 

Supposing, however, that all these arguments have a certain 
foundation; admitting, for a moment, that they are comparable 
to those by which the inferiority of the negro to the white man 
may be demonstrated, are they of any value as against woman- 
emancipation? Do they afford us the smallest ground for re- 
fusing to educate women as well as men — to give women the 
same civil and political rights as men? No mistake is so com- 
monly made by clever people as that of assuming a cause to be 
bad because the arguments of its supporters are, to a great extent, 
nonsensical. And we conceive that those who may laugh at the 
arguments of the extreme philogynists, may yet feel bound to 
work heart and soul towards the attainment of their practical 
ends. 

As regards education, for example. Granting the alleged de- 
fects of women, is it not. somewhat absurd to sanction and main- 
tain a system of education which would seem to have been spe- 
cially contrived to exaggerate all these defects? 

Naturally not so firmly strung, nor so well balanced as boys, 
girls are in great measure debarred from the sports and physical 
exercises which are justly thought absolutely necessary for the 
full development of the vigour of the more favoured sex. Wom- 
en are, by nature, more excitable than men — prone to be swept 
by tides of emotion, proceeding from hidden and inward, as well 
as from obvious and external causes; and female education does 
its best to weaken every physical counterpoise to this nervous 
mobility — tends in all ways to stimulate the emotional part of the 
mind and stunt the rest. We find girls naturally timid, inclined 



EMANCIPATION — BLACK AND WHITE 39 

to dependence, born conservatives; and we teach them that inde- 
pendence is unladylike; that blind faith is the right frame of 
mind; and that whatever we may be permitted, and indeed en- 
couraged, to do to our brother, our sister is to be left to the 
tyranny of authority and tradition. With few insignificant ex- 
ceptions, girls have been educated either to be drudges, or toys, 
beneath man; or a sort of angels above him; the highest ideal 
aimed at oscillating between Clarchen and Beatrice. The possi- 
bility that the ideal of womanhood lies neither in the fair saint, 
nor in the fair sinner ; that the female type of character is neither 
better nor worse than the male, but only weaker; that women are 
meant neither to be men's guides nor their playthings, but their 
comrades, their fellows, and their equals, so far as Nature puts no 
bar to that equality, does not seem to have entered into the minds 
of those who have had the conduct of the education of girls. 

If the present system of female education stands self-con- 
demned, as inherently absurd; and if that which we have just in- 
dicated is the true position of woman, what is the first step to- 
wards a better state of things? We reply, emancipate girls. 
Recognise the fact that they share the senses, perceptions, feelings, 
reasoning powers, emotions of boys, and that the mind of the aver- 
age girl is less different from that of the average boy, than the 
mind of one boy is from that of another; so that whatever argu- 
ment justifies a given education for all boys, justifies its applica- 
tion to girls as well. So far from imposing artificial restrictions 
upon the acquirement of knowledge by women, throw every facility 
in their way. Let our Faustinas, if they will, toil through the 
whole round of 

" Juristerei und Medizin, 
Und leider ! auch Philosophie." 

Let us have " sweet girl graduates " by all means. They will be 
none the less sweet for a little wisdom ; and the " golden hair " 
will not curl less gracefully outside the head by reason of there 
being brains within. Nay, if obvious practical difficulties can be 
overcome, let those women who feel inclined to do so descend into 
the gladiatorial arena of life, not merely in the guise of retiarioe, 
as heretofore, but as bold sicarice, breasting the open fray. Let 
them, if they so please, become merchants, barristers, politicians. 
Let them have a fair field, but let them understand, as the neces- 
sary correlative, that they are to have no favour. Let Nature alone 
sit high above the lists, " rain influence and judge the prize." 

And the result? For our parts, though loth to prophesy, we 
believe it will be that of other emancipations. Women will find 



40 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

their place, and it will neither be that in which they have been 
held, nor that to which some of them aspire. Nature's old salique 
law will not be repealed, and no change of dynasty will be affected. 
The big chests, the massive brains, the vigorous muscles and stout 
frames of the best men will carry the day, whenever it is worth 
their while to contest the prizes of life with the best women. And 
the hardship of it is that the very improvement of the women will 
lessen their chances. Better mothers will bring forth better sons, 
and the impetus gained by the one sex will be transmitted, in the 
next generation, to the other. The most Darwinian of theorists 
will not venture to propound the doctrine, that the physical dis- 
abilities under which women have hitherto laboured in the strug- 
gle for existence with men are likely to be removed by even the 
most skilfully conducted process of educational selection. 

We are, indeed, fully prepared to believe that the bearing of 
children may, and ought to, become as free from danger and 
long disability to the civilised woman as it is to the savage; nor 
is it improbable that, as society advances towards its right organ- 
isation, motherhood will occupy a less space of woman's life than 
it has hitherto done. But still, unless the human species is to 
come to an end altogether — a consummation which can hardly 
be desired by even the most ardent advocate of " women's rights " 
— somebody must be good enough to take the trouble and respon- 
sibility of annually adding to the world exactly as many people 
as die out of it. In consequence of some domestic difficulties, 
Sydney Smith is said to have suggested that it would have been 
good for the human race had the model offered by the hive been 
followed, and had all the working part of the female community 
been neuters. Failing any thorough-going reform of this kind, 
we see nothing for it but the old division of humanity into men- 
potentially, or actually, fathers, and women potentially, if not 
actually, mothers. And we fear that so long as this potential' 
motherhood is her lot, woman will be found to be fearfully 
weighted in the race of life. 

The duty of man is to see that not a grain is piled upon that 
load beyond what Nature imposes; that injustice is not added to 
inequality. 



'A LIBERAL EDUCATION; WHERE TO FIND IT 41 



IV. 

A LIBERAL EDUCATION; AND WHERE TO FIND IT. 

THE business which, the South London Working Men's Col- 
lege has undertaken is a great work; indeed, I might say, 
that Education, with which that college proposes to grapple, 
is the greatest work of all those which lie ready to a man's hand 
just at present. 

And, at length, this fact is becoming generally recognised. 
You cannot go anywhere without hearing a buzz of more or less 
confused and contradictory talk on this subject — nor can you fail 
to notice that, in one point at any rate, there is a very decided 
advance upon like discussions in former days. Nobody outside 
the agricultural interest now dares to say that education is a bad 
thing. If any representative of the once large and powerful 
party, which, in former days, proclaimed this opinion, still exists 
in the semi-fossil state, he keeps his thoughts to himself. In fact, 
there is a chorus of voices, almost distressing in their harmony, 
raised in favour of the doctrine that education is the great panacea 
for human troubles, and that, if the country is not shortly to 
go to the dogs, everybody must be educated. 

The politicians tell us, " You must educate the masses because 
they are going to be masters." The clergy join in the cry for 
education, for they affirm that the people are drifting away from 
church and chapel into the broadest infidelity. The manufac- 
turers and the capitalists swell the chorus lustily. They declare 
that ignorance makes bad workmen; that England will soon be 
unable to turn out cotton goods, or steam engines, cheaper than 
other people; and then, Ichabod! Ichabod! the glory will be de- 
parted from us. And a few voices are lifted up in favour of the 
doctrine that the masses should be educated because they are men 
and women with unlimited capacities of being, doing, and suf- 
fering, and that it is as true now, as it ever was, that the people 
perish for lack of knowledge. 

These members of the minority, with whom I confess I have a 
good deal of sympathy, are doubtful whether any of the other rea- 
sons urged in favour of the education of the people are of much 



42 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

value — whether, indeed, some of them are based upon either wise 
or noble grounds of action. They question if it be wise to tell 
people that you will do for them, out of fear of their power, what 
you have left undone, so long as your only motive was compassion 
for their weakness and their sorrows. And, if ignorance of every- 
thing which it is needful a ruler should know is likely to do so 
much harm in the governing classes of the future, why is it, they 
ask reasonably enough, that such ignorance in the governing 
classes of the past has not been viewed with equal horror? 

Compare the average artisan and the average country squire, 
and it may be doubted if you will find a pin to choose between the 
two in point of ignorance, class feeling, or prejudice. It is true 
that the ignorance is of a different sort — that the class feeling 
is in favour of a different class — and that the prejudice has a 
distinct savour of wrongheadedness in each case — but it is ques- 
tionable if the one is either a bit better, or a bit worse, than the 
other. The old protectionist theory is the doctrine of trades 
unions as applied by the squires, and the modern trades unionism 
is the doctrine of the squires applied by the artisans. Why should 
we be worse off under one regime than under the other ? 

Again, this sceptical minority asks the clergy to think whether 
it is really want of education which keeps the masses away from 
their ministrations — whether the most completely educated men 
are not as open to reproach on this score as the workmen; and 
whether, perchance, this may not indicate that it is not education 
which lies at the bottom of the matter? 

Once more, these people, whom there is no pleasing, venture 
to doubt whether the glory which rests upon being able to under- 
sell all the rest of the world, is a very safe kind of glory — whether 
we may not purchase it too dear ; especially if we allow education, 
which ought to be directed to the making of men, to be diverted 
into a process of manufacturing human tools, wonderfully adroit 
in the exercise of some technical industry, but good for nothing 
else. 

And, finally, these people inquire whether it is the masses alone 
who need a reformed and improved education. They ask whether 
the richest of our public schools might not well be made to supply 
knowledge, as well as gentlemanly habits, a strong class feeling, 
and eminent proficiency in cricket. They seem to think that the 
noble foundations of our old universities are hardly fulfilling their 
functions in their present posture of half -clerical seminaries, half 
racecourses, where men are trained to win a senior wrangleship, 
or a double-first, as horses are trained to win a cup, with as little 
reference to the needs of after-life in the case of a man as in that 



A LIBERAL EDUCATION; WHERE TO FIND IT 43 

of the racer. And, while as zealous for education as the rest, they 
affirm that, if the education of the richer classes were such as to 
fit them, to be the leaders and the governors of the poorer; and, 
if the education of the poorer classes were such as to enable them 
to appreciate really wise guidance and good governance, the poli- 
ticians need not fear mob-law, nor clergy lament their want of, 
flocks, nor the capitalists prognosticate the annihilation of the 
prosperity of the country. 

Such is the diversity of opinion upon the why and the where- 
fore of education. And my hearers will be prepared to expect that 
the practical recommendations which are put forward are not less 
discordant. There is a loud cry for compulsory education. We 
English, in spite of constant experience to the contrary, preserve 
a touching faith in the efficacy of acts of Parliament; and I be- 
lieve we should have compulsory education in the course of next 
session, if there were the least probability that half a dozen lead- 
ing statesmen of different parties would agree what that education 
should be. 

Some hold that education without theology is worse than none. 
Others maintain, quite as strongly, that education with theology 
is in the same predicament. But this is certain, that those who 
hold the first opinion can by no means agree what theology should 
be taught; and that those who maintain the second are in a 
small minority. 

At any rate " make people learn to read, write, and cipher," say 
a great many; and the advice is undoubtedly sensible as far as it 
goes. But, as has happened to me in former days, those who, in 
despair of getting anything better, advocate this measure, are met 
with the objection that it is very like making a child practise the 
use of a knife, fork, and spoon, without giving it a particle of 
meat. I really don't know what reply is to be made to such an 
objection. 

But it would be unprofitable to spend more time in disentan- 
gling, or rather in showing up the knots in, the ravelled skeins of 
our neighbours. Much more to the purpose is it to ask if we 
possess any clue of our own which may guide us among these en- 
tanglements. And by way of a beginning, let us ask ourselves — 
What is education? Above all things, what is our ideal of a thor- 
oughly liberal education ? — of that education which, if we could 
begin life again, we would give ourselves — of that education 
which, if we could mould the fates to our own will, we would give 
our children? Well, I know not what may be your conceptions 
upon this matter, but I will tell you mine, and I hope I shall find 
that our views are not very discrepant. 



44 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

Suppose it were perfectly certain that the life and fortune of 
every one of us would, one day or other, depend upon his winning 
or losing a game of chess. Don't you think that we should all 
consider it to be a primary duty to learn at least the names and 
moves of the pieces ; to have a notion of a gambit, and a keen eye 
for all the means of giving and getting out of check? Do you not 
think that we should look with a disapprobation amounting to 
scorn, upon the father who allowed his son, or the state which 
allowed its members, to grow up without knowing a pawn from a 
knight ? 

Yet it is a very plain and elementary truth, that the life, the 
fortune, and the happiness of every one of us, and more or less, 
of those who are connected with us, do depend upon our know- 
ing something of the rules of a game infinitely more difficult and 
complicated than chess. It is a game which has been played for 
untold ages, every man and woman of us being one of the two 
players in a game of his or her own. The chess-board is the 
world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of 
the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the 
other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always 
fair, just and patient. But also we know, to our cost, that he 
never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for 
ignorance. To the man who plays well, the highest stakes are 
paid, with that sort of overflowing generosity with which the 
strong shows delight in strength. And one who plays ill is check- 
mated — without haste, but without remorse. 

My metaphor will remind some of you of the famous picture in 
which Retzsch has depicted Satan playing at chess with man for 
his soul. Substitute for the mocking fiend in that picture a calm, 
strong angel who is playing for love, as we say, and would rather 
lose than win — and I should accept it as an image of human 
life. 

Well, what I mean by Education is learning the rules of this 
mighty game. In other words, education is the instruction of the 
intellect in the laws of Nature, under which name I include not 
merely things and their forces, but men and their ways; and the 
fashioning of the affections and of the will into an earnest and 
loving desire to move in harmony with those laws. For me, educa- 
tion means neither more nor less than this. Anything which 
professes to call itself education must be tried by this standard, 
and if it fails to stand the test, I will not call it education, 
whatever may be the force of authority, or of numbers, upon the 
other side. 

It is important to remember that, in strictness, there is no such 



A LIBERAL EDUCATION; WHERE TO FIND IT 45 

thing as an uneducated man. Take an extreme case. Suppose 
that an adult man, in the full vigour of his faculties, could be 
suddenly placed in the world, as Adam is said to have been, and 
then left to do as he best might. How long would he be left uned- 
ucated? Not five minutes. Nature would begin to teach him, 
through the eye, the ear, the touch, the properties of objects. Pain 
and pleasure would be at his elbow telling him to do this and 
avoid that; and by slow degrees the man would receive an educa- 
tion which, if narrow, would be thorough, real, and adequate to his 
circumstances, though there would be no extras and very few ac- 
complishments. 

And if to this solitary man entered a second Adam, or, better 
still, an Eve, a new and greater world, that of social and moral 
phenomena, would be revealed. Joys and woes, compared with 
which all others might seem but faint shadows, would spring from 
the new relations. Happiness and sorrow would take the place of 
the coarser monitors, pleasure and pain; but conduct would still 
be shaped by the observation of the natural consequences of ac- 
tions; or, in other words, by the laws of the nature of man. 

To every one of us the world was once as fresh and new as to 
Adam. And then, long before we were susceptible of any other 
modes of instruction, Nature took us in hand, and every minute 
of waking life brought its educational influence, shaping our ac- 
tions into rough accordance with Nature's laws, so that we might 
not be ended untimely by too gross disobedience. Nor should I 
speak of this process of education as past for any one, be he as old 
as he may. Eor every man the world is as fresh as it was at the 
first day, and as full of untold novelties for him who has the eyes 
to see them. And Nature is still continuing her patient education 
of us in that great university, the universe, of which we are all 
members — Nature having no Test-Acts. 

Those who take honours in Nature's university, who learn the 
laws which govern men and things and obey them, are the really 
great and successful men in this world. The great mass of man- 
kind are the " Poll," who pick up just enough to get through with- 
out much discredit. Those who won't learn at all are plucked; 
and then you can't come up again. Nature's pluck means exter- 
mination. 

Thus the question of compulsory education is settled so far as 
Nature is concerned. Her bill on that question was framed and 
passed long ago. But, like all compulsory legislation, that of 
Nature is harsh and wasteful in its operation. Ignorance is visited 
as sharply as wilful disobedience — incapacity meets with the 
same punishment as crime. Nature's discipline is not even a word 



46 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

and a blow, and the blow first; but the blow without the word. It 
is left to you to find out why your ears are boxed. 

The object of what we commonly call education — that educa- 
tion in which man intervenes and which I shall distinguish as 
artificial education — is to make good these defects in Nature's 
methods; to prepare the child to receive Nature's education, 
neither incapably nor ignorantly, nor with wilful disobedience; 
and to understand the preliminary symptoms of her pleasure, 
without waiting for the box on the ear. In short, all artificial 
education ought to be an anticipation of natural education. And 
a liberal education is an artificial education which has not only 
prepared a man to escape the great evils of disobedience to natural 
laws, but has trained him to appreciate and to seize upon the re- 
wards, which Nature scatters with as free a hand as her penalties. 

That man, I think, has had a liberal education who has been so 
trained in youth that his body is the ready servant of his will, and 
does with ease and pleasure all the work that, as a mechanism, it 
is capable of; whose intellect is a clear, cold, logic engine, with all 
its parts of equal strength, and in smooth working order; ready, 
like a steam engine, to be turned to any kind of work, and spin the 
gossamers as well as forge the anchors of the mind; whose mind 
is stored with a knowledge of the great and fundamental truths of 
Nature and of the laws of her operations; one who, no stunted 
ascetic, is full of life and fire, but whose passions are trained to 
come to heel by a vigorous will, the servant of a tender con- 
science; who has learned to love all beauty, whether of Nature or 
of art, to hate all vileness, and to respect others as himself. 

Such an one and no other, I conceive, has had a liberal educa- 
tion; for he is, as completely as a man can be, in harmony with 
Nature. He will make the best of her, and she of him. They 
will get on together rarely; she as his ever beneficent mother; he 
as her mouthpiece, her conscious self, her minister and interpreter. 

Where is such an education as this to be had? Where is there 
any approximation to it? Has any one tried to found such an 
education? Looking over the length and breadth of these islands, 
I am afraid that all these questions must receive a negative an- 
swer. Consider our primary schools and what is taught in them. 
A child learns — 

1. To read, write, and cipher, more or less well; but in a very 
large proportion of cases not so well as to take pleasure in read- 
ing, or to be able to Mnrite the commonest letter properly. 

2. A quantity of dogmatic theology, of which the child, nine 
times out of ten, understands next to nothing. 

3. Mixed up with this, so as to seem to stand or fall with it, a 



A LIBERAL EDUCATION: WHERE TO FIND IT 47 

few of the broadest and simplest principles of morality. Tjub, to 
my mind, is much as if a man of science should make the stoiy of 
the fall of the apple in Newton's garden an integral part of the 
doctrine of gravitation, and teach it as of equal authority with 
the law of the inverse squares. 

4. A good deal of Jewish history and Syrian geography, and 
perhaps a little something about English history and the geogra- 
phy of a child's own country. But I doubt if there is a primary 
school in England in which hangs a map of the hundred in which 
the village lies, so that the children may be practically tau^t 
by it what a map means. 

5. A certain amount of regularity, attentive ohedience, rrapect 
for others : obtained by fear, if the master be incompetent or 
foolish; by love and reverence, if he be wise. 

So far as this school course embraces a training in the theory 
and practice of obedience to the moral laws of Nature, I gladly 
admit, not only that it contains a valuable educational element, 
but that, so far, it deals with the ms^ valuable and important part 
of all education. Yet, contrast what is done in this direction with 
what might be done; with the time given to matters of compara- 
tively no importance; with the absence of any attention to things 
of the highest moment; and one is tempted to think of Ealsta^'s 
bill and "the halfpomy worth of bread to all that quantity of 
sack." 

Let us consider what a child thus " educated " knows, and what 
it does not know. Begin with the most important topic oi all — 
morality, as the guide of conduct. The child knows well enough 
that some acts meet with approbation and some with disapproba- 
tion. But it has never heard that there lies in the nature of 
things a reason for every moral law, as cogent and as well defined 
as that which underlies every physical law; that stealing and 
lying are just as certain to be followed by evil conseqaences, as 
putting your hand in the fire, or jumping out of a garret win- 
dow. Again, though the scholar may have been made acquainted, 
in dogmatic fashion, wdth the broad laws of morality, he has had 
no training in the application of those laws to the difficult prob- 
lems which result from the complex conditions of modem civilisa- 
tion. Would it not be very hard to expect any one to solve a 
problem in conic sections who had merely been taught the axioms 
and definitions of mathematical science? 

A workman has to bear hard labour, and perhaps privation, 
while he sees others rolling in wealth, and feeding their dogs 
with what would keep his children from starvation. Would it not 
be well to have helped that man to calm the natural promptings 



48 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

of discontent by showing him, in his youth, the necessary connec- 
tion of the moral law which prohibits stealing with the stability 
of society — by proving to him, once for all, that it is better for 
his own people, better for himself, better for future generations, 
that he should starve than steal? If you have no foundation of 
knowledge, or habit of thought, to work upon, what chance have 
you of persuading a hungry man that a capitalist is not a thief 
" with a circumbendibus ? " And if he honestly believes that, of 
what avail is it to quote the commandment against stealing, when 
he proposes to make the capitalist disgorge? 

Again, the child learns absolutely nothing of the history or the 
political organisation of his own country. His general impression 
is, that everything of much importance happened a very long 
while ago; and that the Queen and the gentlefolks govern the 
country much after the fashion of King David and the elders 
and nobles of Israel — his sole models. Will you give a man with 
this much information a vote? In easy times he sells it for a pot 
of beer. Why should he not? It is of about as much use to him 
as a chignon, and he knows as much what to do with it, for any 
other purpose. In bad times, on the contrary, he applies his simple 
theory of government, and believes that his rulers are the cause of 
his sufferings — a belief which sometimes bears remarkable prac- 
tical fruits. 

Least of all, does the child gather from this primary " educa- 
tion " of ours a conception of the laws of the physical world, or of 
the relations of cause and effect therein. And this is the more 
to be lamented, as the poor are especially exposed to physical 
evils, and are more interested in removing them than any other 
class of the community. If any one is concerned in knowing the 
ordinary laws of mechanics one would think it is the hand- 
labourer, whose daily toil lies among levers and pulleys; or among 
the other implements of artisan work. And if any one is inter- 
ested in the laws of health, it is the poor workman, whose strength 
is wasted by ill-prepared food, whose health is sapped by bad ven- 
tilation and bad drainage, and half whose children are mas- 
sacred by disorders which might be prevented. Not only does our 
present primary education carefully abstain from hinting to the 
workman that some of his greatest evils are traceable to mere 
physical agencies, which could be removed by energy, patience, and 
frugality; but it does worse — it renders him, so far as it can, 
deaf to those who could help him, and tries to substitute an 
Oriental submission to what is falsely declared to be the will of 
God, for his natural tendency to strive after a better condition. 

What wonder, then, if very recently an appeal has been made 



A LIBERAL EDUCATION; WHERE TO FIND IT 49 

to statistics for the profoundly foolish purpose of showing that 
education is of no good — that it diminishes neither misery nor 
crime among the masses of mankind? I reply, why should the 
thing which has been called education do either the one or the 
other ? If I am a knave or a fool, teaching me to read and write 
won't make me less of either one or the other — unless somebody 
shows me how to put my reading and writing to wise and good 
purposes. 

Suppose any one were to argue that medicine is of no use, 
because it could be proved statistically, that the percentage of 
deaths was just the same among people who had been taught how 
to open a medicine chest, and among those who did not so much as 
know the key by sight. The argument is absurd; but it is not 
more preposterous than that against which I am contending. The 
only medicine for suffering, crime, and all the other woes of man- 
kind, is wisdom. Teach a man to read and write, and you have 
put into his hands the great keys of the wisdom box. But it is 
quite another matter whether he ever opens the box or not. And 
he is as likely to poison as to cure himself, if, without guidance, 
he swallows the first drug that comes to hand. In these times 
a man may as well be purblind, as unable to read — lame, as 
unable to write. But I protest that, if I thought the alternative 
were a necessary one, I would rather that the children of the poor 
should grow up ignorant of both these mighty arts, than that they 
should remain ignorant of that knowledge to which these arts 
are means. 

It may be said that all these animadversions may apply to pri- 
mary schools, but that the higher schools, at any rate, must be 
allowed to give a liberal education. In fact they professedly sac- 
rifice everything else to this object. 

Let us inquire into this matter. What do the higher schools, 
those to which the great middle class of the country sends its 
children, teach, over and above the instruction given in the pri- 
mary schools? There is a little more reading and writing of 
English. But, for all that, every one knows that it is a rare 
thing to find a boy of the middle or upper classes who can read 
aloud decently, or who can put his thoughts on paper in clear and 
grammatical (to say nothing of good or elegant) language. The 
" ciphering " of the lower schools expands into elementary mathe- 
matics in the higher; into arithmetic, with a little algebra, a little 
Euclid. But I doubt if one boy in five hundred has ever heard 
the explanation of a rule of arithmetic, or knows his Euclid 
otherwise than by rote. 



50 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

Of theology, the middle class schoolboy gets rather less than 
poorer children, less absolutely and less relatively, because there 
are so many other claims upon his attention. I venture to say 
that, in the great majority of cases, his ideas on this subject when 
he leaves school are of the most shadowy and vague description, 
and associated with painful impressions of the weary hours spent 
in learning collects and catechism by heart. 

Modern geography, modern history, modern literature; the 
English language as a language; the whole circle of the sciences, 
physical, moral and social, are even more completely ignored in 
the higher than in the lower schools. Up till within a few years 
back, a boy might have passed through any one of the great public 
schools with the greatest distinction and credit, and might never 
so much as have heard of one of the subjects I have just mentioned. 
He might never have heard that the earth goes round the sun; 
that England underwent a great revolution in 1688, and France 
another in 1789; that* there once lived certain notable men called 
Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Voltaire, Goethe, Schiller. The 
first might be a German and the last an Englishman for anything 
he could tell you to the contrary. And as for science, the only 
idea the word would suggest to his mind would be dexterity in 
boxing. 

I have said that this was the state of things a few years back, 
for the sake of the few righteous who are to be found among the 
educational cities of the plain. But I would not have you too 
sanguine about the result, if you sound the minds of the existing 
generation of public schoolboys, on such topics as those I have 
mentioned. 

Now let us pause to consider this wonderful state of affairs ; for 
the time will come when Englishmen will quote it as the stock ex- 
ample of the stolid stupidity of their ancestors in the nineteenth 
century. The most thoroughly commercial people, the greatest 
voluntary wanderers and colonists the world has ever seen, are 
precisely the middle class of this country. If there be a people 
which has been busy making history on the great scale for the 
last three hundred years — and the most profoundly interesting his- 
tory — history which, if it happened to be that of Greece or Rome, 
we should study with avidity — it is the English. If there be a 
people which, during the same period, has developed a remarkable 
literature, it is our own. If there be a nation whose prosperity de- 
pends absolutely and wholly upon their mastery over the forces 
of Nature, upon their intelligent apprehension of, and obedience 
to the laws of the creation and distribution of wealth, and of the 
stable equilibrium of the forces of society, it is precisely this 



A LIBERAL EDUCATION; WHERE TO FIND IT 51 

nation. And yet this is what these wonderful people tell their 
sons : — "At the cost of from one to two thousand pounds of our 
hard-earned money, we devote twelve of the most precious years 
of your lives to school. There you shall toil, or be supposed to 
toil; but there you shall not learn one single thing of all those 
you will most want to know directly you leave school and enter 
upon the practical business of life. You will in all probability 
go into business, but you shall not know where, or how, any article 
of commerce is produced, or the difference between export or an 
import, or the meaning of the word ' capital.' You will very likely 
settle in a colony, but you shall not know whether Tasmania is 
part of New South Wales, or vice versa. 

" Very probably you may become a manufacturer, but you shall 
not be provided with the means of understanding the working of 
one of your own steam-engines, or the nature of the raw products 
you employ; and, when you are asked to buy a patent, you shall 
not have the slightest means of judging whether the inventor is an 
impostor who is contravening the elementary principles of science, 
or a man who will make you as rich as Croesus. 

" You will very likely get into the House of Commons. You 
will have to take your share in making laws which may prove a 
blessing or a curse to millions of men. But you shall not hear 
one word respecting the political organisation of your country; 
the meaning of the controversy between free-traders and pro- 
tectionists shall never have been mentioned to you; you shall not 
so much as know that there are such things as economical laws. 

"The mental power which will be of most importance in your 
daily life will be the power of seeing things as they are without 
regard to authority; and of drawing accurate general conclusions 
from particular facts. But at school and at college you shall 
know of no source of truth but authority; nor exercise your 
reasoning faculty upon anything but deduction from that which 
is land down by authority. 

" You will have to weary your soul with work, and many a time 
eat your bread in sorrow and in bitterness, and you shall not have 
learned to take refuge in the great source of pleasure without 
alloy, the serene resting place for worn human nature, — the world 
of art." 

Said I not rightly that we are a wonderful people? I am quite 
prepared to allow, that education entirely devoted to these omitted 
subjects might not be a completely liberal education. But is an 
education which ignores them all a liberal education? Nay, is 
it too much to say that the education which should embrace these 
subjects and no others would be a real education, though an in- 



52 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

complete one; while an education which omits them is really not 
an education at all, but a more or less useful course of intellect- 
ual gymnastics? 

For what does the middle-class school put in the place of all 
these things which are left out? It substitutes what is usually 
comprised under the compendious title of the " classics " — that is 
to say, the languages, the literature, and the history of the ancient 
Greeks and Romans, and the geography of so much of the world 
as was known to these two great nations of antiquity. Now, do 
not expect me to depreciate the earnest and enlightened pursuit 
of classical learning. I have not the least desire to speak ill of 
such occupations, nor any sympathy with them who run them 
down. On the contrary, if my opportunities had lain in that 
direction, there is no investigation into which I could have thrown 
myself with greater delight than that of antiquity. 

What science can present greater attractions than philology? 
How can a lover of literary excellence fail to rejoice in the ancient 
masterpieces? And with what consistency could I, whose busi- 
ness lies so much in the attempt to decipher the past, and to build 
up intelligible forms out of the scattered fragments of long ex- 
tinct beings, fail to take a sympathetic, though an unlearned, 
interest in the labours of a Niebuhr, a Gibbon, or a Grote? 
Classical history is a great section of the palaeontology of man; 
and I have the same double respect for it as for other kinds of 
palaeontology — that is to say, a respect for the facts which it 
establishes as for all facts, and a still greater respect for it as a 
preparation for the discovery of a law of progress. 

But if the classics were taught as they might be taught — if 
boys and girls were instructed in Greek and Latin, not merely as 
languages, but as illustrations of philological science; if a vivid 
picture of life on the shores of the Mediterranean two thousand 
years ago were imprinted on the minds of scholars; if ancient 
history were taught, not as a weary series of feuds and fights, 
but traced to its causes in such men placed under such condi- 
tions; if, lastly, the study of the classical books were followed 
in such a manner as to impress boys with their beauties, and 
with the grand simplicity of their statement of the everlasting 
problems of human life, instead of with their verbal and gram- 
matical peculiarities; I still think it as little proper that they 
should form the basis of a liberal education for our contempora- 
ries, as I should think it fitting to make that sort of palaeontology 
with which I am familiar the back-bone of modern education. 

It is wonderful how close a parallel to classical training could 
be made out of that paleontology to which I refer. In the first 



A LIBERAL EDUCATION; WHERE TO FIND IT 53 

place I could get up an osteological primer so arid, so pedantic 
in its terminology, so altogether distasteful to the youthful mind, 
as to beat the recent famous production of the head-masters out 
of the field in all these excellences. Next, I could exercise my 
boys upon easy fossils, and bring out all their powers of memory 
and all their ingenuity in the application of my osteo-grammatical 
rules to the interpretation, or construing, of those fragments. 
To those who had reached the higher classes, I might supply odd 
bones to be built up into animals, giving great honour and re- 
ward to him who succeeded in fabricating monsters most entirely 
in accordance with the rules. That would answer to verse-mak- 
ing and essay-writing in the dead languages. 

To be sure, if a great comparative anatomist were to look at 
these fabrications he might shake his head, or laugh. But what 
then? Would such a catastrophe destroy the parallel? What, 
think you, would Cicero, or Horace, say to the production of the 
best sixth form going? And would not Terence stop his ears and 
run out if he could be present at an English performance of his 
own plays? Would Hamlet, in the mouths of a set of French 
actors, who should insist on pronouncing English after the fashion 
of their own tongue, be more hideously ridiculous? 

But it will be said that I am forgetting the beauty, and the 
human interest, which appertain to classical studies. To this I 
reply that it is only a very strong man who can appreciate the 
charms of a landscape as he is toiling up a steep hill, along a 
bad road. What with short-windedness, stones, ruts, and a per- 
vading sense of the wisdom of rest and be thankful, most of 
us have little enough sense of the beautiful under these circum- 
stances. The ordinary schoolboy is precisely in this case. He 
finds Parnassus uncommonly steep, and there is no chance of his 
having much time or inclination to look about him till he gets 
to the top. And nine times out of ten he does not get to the top. 

But if this be a fair picture of the results of classical teach- 
ing at its best — and I gather from those who have authority to 
speak on such matters that it is so — what is to be said of classical 
teaching at its worst, or in other words, of the classics of our 
ordinary middle-class schools ?* I will tell you. It means getting 
up endless forms and rules by heart. It means turning Latin 
and Greek into English, for the mere sake of being able to do 
it, and without the smallest regard to the worth, or worthlessness, 
of the author read. It means the learning of innumerable, not 
always decent, fables in such a shape that the meaning they 

* For a justification of what is here said about these schools, see that 
valuable book, Essays on a Liberal Education, passim. 



54 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

once had is dried up into other trash; and the only impression 
left upon a boy's mind is, that the people who believed such things 
must have been the greatest idiots the world ever saw. And it 
means, finally, that after a dozen years spent at this kind of 
work, the sufferer shall be incompetent to interpret a passage in 
an author he has not already got up; that he shall loathe the 
sight of a Greek or Latin book; and that he shall never open, or 
think of, a classical writer again, until, wonderful to relate, he 
insists upon submitting his sons to the same process. 

These be your gods, O Israel! For the sake of this net result 
(and respectability) the British father denies his children all 
the knowledge they might turn to account in life, not merely for 
the achievement of vulgar success, but for guidance in the great 
crises of human existence. This is the stone he offers to those 
whom he is bound by the strongest and tenderest ties to feed with 
bread. 

If primary and secondary education are in this unsatisfactory 
state, what is to be said to the universities? This is an awful 
subject, and one I almost fear to touch with my unhallowed 
hands; but I can tell you what those say who have authority to 
speak. 

The Eector of Lincoln College, in his lately published valu- 
able " Suggestions for Academical Organisation with especial 
reference to Oxford," tells us (p. 127) : — 

" The colleges were, in their origin, endowments, not for the 
elements of a general liberal education, but for the prolonged 
study of special and professional faculties by men of riper age. 
The universities embraced both these objects. The colleges, while 
they incidentally aided in elementary education, were specially 
devoted to the highest learning . . . 

" This was the theory of the middle-age university and the de- 
sign of collegiate foundations in their origin. Time and circum- 
stances have brought about a total change. The colleges no longer 
promote the researches of science, or direct professional study. 
Here and there college walls may shelter an occasional student, 
but not in larger proportions than may be found in private life. 
Elementary teaching of youths under twenty is now the only 
function performed by the university, and almost the only object 
of college endowments. Colleges were homes for the life-study of 
the highest and most abstruse parts of knowledge. They have 
become boarding schools in which the elements of the learned 
languages are taught to youths." 

If Mr. Pattison's high position, and his obvious love and re- 



A LIBERAL EDUCATION; WHERE TO FIND IT 55 

spect for his university, be insufficient to convince the outside 
world that language so severe is yet no more than just, the au- 
thority of the Commissioners who reported on the University of 
Oxford in 1850 is open to no challenge. Yet they write : — 

" It is generally acknowledged that both Oxford and the country 
at large suffer greatly from the absence of a body of learned men 
devoting their lives to the cultivation of science, and to the direc- 
tion of academical education. 

" The fact that so few books of profound research emanate from 
the University of Oxford, materially impairs its character as a seat 
of learning, and consequently its hold on the respect of the 
nation." 

Cambridge can claim no exemption from the reproaches ad- 
dressed to Oxford. And thus there seems no escape from the 
admission that what we fondly call our great seats of learning 
are simply " boarding schools " for bigger boys ; that learned men 
are not more numerous in them than out of them; that the ad- 
vancement of knowledge is not the object of fellows of colleges; 
that, in the philosophic calm and meditative stillness of their 
greenswarded courts, philosophy does not thrive, and meditation 
bears few fruits. 

It is my great good fortune to reckon amongst my friends resi- 
dent members of both universities, who are men of learning and 
research, zealous cultivators of science, keeping before their minds 
a noble ideal of a university, and doing their best to make that 
ideal a reality; and, to me, they would necessarily typify the 
universities, did not the authoritative statements I have quoted 
compel me to believe that they are exceptional, and not representa- 
tive men. Indeed, upon calm consideration, several circumstances 
lead me to think that the Hector of Lincoln College and the Com- 
missioners cannot be far wrong. 

I believe there can be no doubt that the foreigner who should 
wish to become acquainted with the scientific, or the literary, 
activity of modern England, would simply lose his time and his 
pains if he visited our universities with that object. 

And, as for works of profound research on any subject, and, 
above all, in that classical lore for which the universities profess 
to sacrifice almost everything else, why, a third-rate, poverty- 
stricken German university turns out more produce of that kind 
in one year, than our vast and wealthy foundations elaborate 
in ten. 

Ask the man who is investigating any question, profoundly and 
thoroughly — be it historical, philosophical, philological, physical, 
literary, or theological; who is trying to make himself master of 



56 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

any abstract subject (except, perhaps, political economy and geo- 
logy, both of which are intensely Anglican sciences), whether he is 
not compelled to read half a dozen times as many German as 
English books? And whether, of these English books, more than 
one in ten is the work of a fellow of a college, or a professor of an 
English university? 

Is this. from any lack of power in the English as compared with 
the German mind? The countrymen of Grote and of Mill, of 
Earaday, of Robert Brown, of Lyell, and of Darwin, to go no 
further back than the contemporaries of men of middle age, can 
afford to smile at such a suggestion. England can show now, as 
she has been able to show in every generation since civilisation 
spread over the West, individual men who hold their own against 
the world, and keep alive the old tradition of their intellectual 
eminence. 

But, in the majority of cases, these men are what they are in 
virtue of their native intellectual force, and of a strength of 
character which will not recognise impediments. They are not 
trained in the courts of the Temple of Science, but storm the 
walls of that edifice in all sorts of irregular ways, and with much 
loss of time and power, in order to obtain their legitimate posi- 
tions. 

Our universities not only do not encourage such men; do not 
offer them positions, in which it should be their highest duty to 
do, thoroughly, that which they are most capable of doing; but, 
as far as possible, university training shuts out of the minds of 
those among them, who are subjected to it, the prospect that there 
is anything in the world for which they are specially fitted. Im- 
agine the success of the attempt to still the intellectual hunger 
of any of the men I have mentioned, by putting before him, as 
the object of existence, the successful mimicry of the measure of 
a Greek song, or the roll of Ciceronian prose! Imagine how 
much success would be likely to attend the attempt to persuade 
such men that the education which leads to perfection in such 
elegances is alone to be called culture; while the facts of history, 
the process of thought, the conditions of moral and social' ex- 
istence, and the laws of physical nature are left to be dealt with 
as they may by outside barbarians! 

It is not thus that the German universities, from being beneath 
notice a century ago, have become what they are now — the most 
intensely cultivated and the most productive intellectual corpora- 
tions the world has ever seen. 

The student who repairs to them sees in the list of classes and 
of professors a fair picture of the world of knowledge. What- 



A LIBERAL EDUCATION; WHERE TO FIND IT 57 

ever he needs to know there is some one ready to teach him, 
some one competent to discipline him in the way of learning; 
whatever his special bent, let him but be able and diligent, and 
in due time he shall find distinction and a career. Among his 
professors, he sees men whose names are known and revered 
throughout the civilised world; and their living example infects 
him with a noble ambition, and a love for the spirit of work. 

The Germans dominate the intellectual world by virtue of the 
same simple secret as that which made Napoleon the master of 
old Europe. They have declared la carrier e ouverte aux talents, 
and every Bursch marches with a professor's gown in his knap- 
sack. Let him become a great scholar, or man of science, and 
ministers will compete for his services. In Germany, they do 
not leave the chance of his holding the office he would render 
illustrious to the tender mercies of a hot canvass, and the final 
wisdom of a raob of country parsons. 

In short, in Germany, the universities are exactly what the 
Hector of Lincoln and the Commissioners tell us the English 
universities are not ; that is to say, corporations " of learned men 
devoting their lives to the cultivation of science, and the direction 
of academical education." They are not " boarding schools for 
youths," nor clerical seminaries; but institutions for the higher 
culture of men, in which the theological faculty is of no more im- 
portance or prominence, than the rest ; and which are truly " uni- 
versities," since they strive to represent and embody the totality 
of human knowledge, and to find room for all forms of intellectual 
activity. 

May zealous and clear-headed reformers like Mr. Pattison 
succeed in their noble endeavors to shape our universities towards 
some such ideal as this, without losing what is valuable and dis- 
tinctive in their social tone! But until they have succeeded, a 
liberal education will be no more obtainable in our Oxford and 
Cambridge Universities than in our public schools. 

If I am justified in my conception of the ideal of a liberal 
education ; and if what I have said about the existing educational 
institutions of the country is also true, it is clear that the two 
have no sort of relation to one another; that the best of our 
schools and the most complete of our university trainings give but 
a narrow, one-sided, and essentially illiberal education — while the 
worst give what is really next to no education at all. The South 
London Working-Men's College could not copy any of these insti- 
tutions if it would; I am bold enough to express the conviction 
that it ought not if it could. 

Eor what is wanted is the reality and not the mere name of a 



58 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

liberal education; and this College must steadily set before itself 
the ambition to be able to give that education sooner or later. At 
present we are but beginning, sharpening our educational tools, 
as it were, and, except a modicum of physical science, we are not 
able to offer much more than is to be found in an ordinary school. 

Moral and social science — one of the greatest and most fruit- 
ful of our future classes, I hope — at present lacks only one 
thing in our programme, and that is a teacher. A considerable 
want, no doubt; but it must be recollected that it is much better 
to want a teacher than to want the desire to learn. 

Further, we need what, for want of a better name, I must 
call Physical Geography. What I mean is that which the Ger- 
mans call " Erdkunde" It is a description of the earth, of its 
place and relation to other bodies; of its general structure, and of 
its great features — winds, tides, mountains, plains: of the chief 
forms of the vegetable and animal worlds, of the varieties of man. 
It is the peg upon which the greatest quantity of useful and enter- 
taining scientific information can be suspended. 

Literature is not upon the College programme; but I hope 
some day to see it there. For literature is the greatest of all 
sources of refined pleasure, and one of the great uses of a liberal 
education is to enable us to enjoy that pleasure. There is scope 
enough for the purposes of liberal education in the study of the 
rich treasures of our own language alone. All that is needed is 
direction and the cultivation of a refined taste by attention to 
sound criticism. But there is no reason why French and German 
should not be mastered sufficiently to read what is worth read- 
ing in those languages with pleasure and with profit. 

And finally, by and by, we must have History; treated not as a 
succession of battles and dynasties; not as a series of biographies; 
not as evidence that Providence has always been on the side of 
either Whigs or Tories; but as the development of man in times 
past, and in other conditions than our own. 

But, as it is one of the principles of our College to be self- 
supporting, the public must lead, and we must follow, in these 
matters. If my hearers take to heart what I have said about 
liberal education, they will desire these things, and I doubt not 
we shall be able to supply them. But we must wait till the de- 
mand is made. 



SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION 59 



V. 

SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION: NOTES OF AN AFTEK- 

DINNER SPEECH. 

[Mr. Thackeray, talking of after-dinner speeches, has lamented that 
" one never can recollect the fine things one thought of in the cab," 
in going to the place of entertainment. I am not aware that there 
are any " fine things " in the following pages, but such as there are 
stand to a speech which really did get itself spoken, at the hospitable 
table of the Liverpool Philomathic Society, more or less in) the position 
of what " one thought of in the cab."] 

THE introduction of scientific training into the general edu- 
cation of the country is a topic upon which I could not 
have spoken, without some more or less apologetic intro- 
duction, a few years ago. But upon this, as upon other matters, 
public opinion has of late undergone a rapid modification. Com- 
mittees of both Houses of the Legislature have agreed that some- 
thing must be done in this direction, and have even thrown out 
timid and faltering suggestions as to what should be done; while 
at the opposite pole of society, committees of working men have 
expressed their conviction that scientific training is the one thing 
needful for their advancement, whether as men, or as workmen. 
Only the other day, it was my duty to take part in the reception 
of a deputation of London workingmen, who desired to learn from 
Sir Roderick Murchison, the Director of the Royal School of 
Mines, whether the organisation of the institution in Jermyn 
Street could be made available for the supply of that scientific 
instruction the need of which could not have been apprehended, 
or stated, more clearly than it was by them. 

The heads of colleges in our great universities (who have not 
the reputation of being the most mobile of persons) have, in sev- 
eral cases, thought it well that, out of the great number of 
honours and rewards at their disposal, a few should hereafter be 
given to the cultivators of the physical sciences. Nay, I hear 
that some colleges have even gone so far as to appoint one, or, 
maybe, two special tutors for the purpose of putting the facts and 
principles of physical science before the undergraduate mind. 



60 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

And I say it with gratitude and great respect for those eminent 
persons, that the head masters of our public schools, Eton, Har- 
row, Winchester, have addressed themselves to the problem of 
introducing instruction in physical science among the studies of 
those great educational bodies, with much honesty of purpose and 
enlightenment of understanding; and I live in hope that, before 
long, important changes in this direction will be carried into 
effect in those strongholds of ancient prescription. In fact, such 
changes have already been made, and physical science, even now, 
constitutes a recognized element of the school curriculum in 
Harrow and Eugby, whilst I understand that ample preparations 
for such studies are being made at Eton and elsewhere. 

Looking at these facts, I might perhaps spare myself the 
trouble of giving any reasons for the introduction of physical 
science into elementary education; yet I cannot but think that 
it may be well if I place before you some considerations which, 
perhaps, have hardly received full attention. 

At other times, and in other places, I have endeavoured to 
state the higher and more abstract arguments, by which the study 
of physical science may be shown to be indispensable to the com- 
plete training of the human mind; but I do not wish it to be 
supposed that, because I happen to be devoted to more or less 
abstract and " unpractical " pursuits, I am insensible to the 
weight which ought to be attached to that which has been said to 
be the English conception of Paradise — namely, "getting on." 
I look upon it, that " getting on " is a very important matter in- 
deed. I do not mean merely for the sake of the coarse and 
tangible results of success, but because humanity is so constituted 
that a vast number of us would never be impelled to those 
stretches of exertion which make us wiser and more capable men, 
if it were not for the absolute necessity of putting on our facul- 
ties all the strain they will bear, for the purpose of " getting on " 
in the most practical sense. 

Now the value of a knowledge of physical science as a means 
of getting on is indubitable. There are hardly any of our trades, 
except the merely huckstering ones, in which some knowledge of 
science may not be directly profitable to the pursuer of that occu- 
pation. As industry attains higher stages of its development, as 
its processes become more complicated and refined, and com- 
petition more keen, the sciences are dragged in, one by one, to 
take their share in the fray; and he who can best avail himself 
of their help is the man who will come out uppermost in that 
struggle for existence, which goes on as fiercely beneath the 



SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION 61 

smooth surface of modern society, as among the wild inhabitants 
of the woods. 

But in addition to the bearing of science on ordinary practical 
life, let me direct your attention to its immense influence on sev- 
eral of the professions. I ask any one who has adopted the 
calling of an engineer, how much time he lost when he left school, 
because he had to devote himself to pursuits which were abso- 
lutely novel and strange, and of which he had not obtained the 
remotest conception from his instructors? He had to familiarise 
himself with ideas of the course and powers of Nature, to which 
his attention had never been directed during his school-life, and 
to learn, for the first time, what a world of facts lies outside and 
beyond the world of words. I appeal to those who know what 
engineering is, to say how far I am right in respect to that pro- 
fession ; but with regard to another, of no less importance, I shall 
venture to speak of my own knowledge. There is no one of us 
who may not at any moment be thrown, bound hand and foot 
by physical incapacity, into the hands of a medical practitioner. 
The chances of life and death for all and each of us may, at any 
moment, depend on the skill with which that practitioner is able 
to make out what is wrong in our bodily frames, and on his 
ability to apply the proper remedy to the defect. 

The necessities of modern life are such, and the class from 
which the medical profession is chiefly recruited is so situated, 
that few medical men can hope to spend more than three or four, 
or it may be five, years in the pursuit of those studies which are 
immediately germane to physic. How is that all too brief period 
spent at present? I speak as an old examiner, having served 
some eleven or twelve years in that capacity in the University of 
London, and therefore having a practical acquaintance with the 
subject; but I might fortify myself by the authority of the Presi- 
dent of the College of Surgeons, Mr. Quain, whom I heard the 
other day in an admirable address (the Hunterian Oration) deal 
fully and wisely with this very topic* 

* Mr. Quain's words {Medical Times and Gazette, February 20) are: 
— " A few words as to our special Medical course of instruction and 
the influence upon it of such changes in the elementary schools as I 
have mentioned. The student now enters at once upon several sciences 
— physics, chemistry, anatomy, physiology, botany, pharmacy, therapeu- 
tics — all these, the facts and the language and the laws of each, to be 
mastered in eighteen months. Up to the beginning of the Medical course 
many have learned little. We cannot claim anything better than the 
Examiner of the University of London and the Cambridge Lecturer 
have reported for their Universities. Supposing that at school young 
people had acquired some exact elementary knowledge of physics, chem- 
istry, and a branch of natural history — say botany — with the physi- 
ology connected with it, they would then have gained necessary 



62 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

A young man commencing the study of medicine is at once 
required to endeavour to make an acquaintance with a number of 
sciences, such as Physics, as Chemistry, as Botany, as Physiology, 
which are absolutely and entirely strange to him, however ex- 
cellent his so-called education at school may have been. Not 
only is he devoid of all apprehension of scientific conceptions, 
not only does he fail to attach any meaning to the words " mat- 
ter," " force," or " law " in their scientific senses, but, worse still, 
he has no notion of what it is to come into contact with Nature, 
or to lay his mind alongside of a physical fact, and try to conquer*, 
it, in the way our great naval hero told his captains to master 
their enemies. His whole mind has been given to books, and I 
am hardly exaggerating if I say that they are more real to him 
than Nature. He ir.agines that all knowledge can be got out of 
books, and rests upon the authority of some master or other; 
nor does he entertain any misgiving that the method of learning 
which led to proficiency in the rules of grammar will suffice to 
lead him to a mastery of the laws of Nature. The youngster, 
thus unprepared for serious study, is turned loose among his 
medical studies, with the result, in nine cases out of ten, that 
the first year of his curriculum is spent in learning how to learn. 
Indeed, he is lucky if, at the end of the first year, by the exer- 
tions of his teachers and his own industry, he has acquired even 
that art of arts. After which there remain not more than three, 
or perhaps four, years for the profitable study of such vast 
sciences as Anatomy, Physiology, Theapeutics, Medicine, Surgery, 
Obstetrics, and the like, upon his knowledge or ignorance of 
which it depends whether the practitioner shall diminish, or in- 
crease, the bills of mortality. Now what is it but the preposterous 
condition of ordinary school education which prevents a young 
man of seventeen, destined for the practice of medicine, from be- 
ing fully prepared for the study of Nature; and from coming to 
the medical school, equipped with that preliminary knowledge of 
the principles of Physics, of Chemistry and of Biology, upon 
which he has now to waste one of the precious years, every mo- 
ment of which ought to be given to those studies which bear di- 
rectly upon the knowledge of his profession ? 

knowledge, with some practice in inductive reasoning. The whole 
studies are processes of observation and induction — the best discipline 
of the mind for the purposes of life — for our purposes not less than 
any. 'By such study (says Dr. Whewell) of one or more departments 
of inductive science the mind may escape from the thraldom of mere 
words.' By that plan the burden of the early Medical course would 
be much lightened, and more time devoted to practical studies, including 
Sir Thomas Watson's ' final and supreme stage ' of the knowledge of 
Medicine." 



SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION 63 

There is another profession, to the members of which, I think, 
a certain preliminary knowledge of physical science might be 
quite as valuable as to the medical man. The practitioner of 
medicine sets before himself the noble object of taking care of 
man's bodily welfare; but the members of this other profession 
undertake to " minister to minds diseased," and, so far as may be, 
to diminish sin and soften sorrow. Like the medical profession, 
the clerical, of which I now speak, rests its power to heal upon its 
knowledge of the order of the universe — upon certain theories of 
man's relation to that which lies outside him. It is not my busi- 
ness to express any opinion about these theories. I merely wish 
to point out that, like all other theories, they are professedly 
based upon matters of fact. Thus the clerical profession has to 
deal with the facts of Nature from a certain point of view; and 
hence it comes into contact with that of the man of science, who 
has to treat the same facts from another point of view. You 
know how often that contact is to be described as collision, or 
violent friction; and how great the heat, how little the light, 
which commonly results from it. 

In the interests of fair play, to say nothing of those of man- 
kind, I ask, Why do not the clergy as a body acquire, as a part 
of their preliminary education, some such tincture of physical 
science as will put them in a position to understand the diffi- 
culties in the way of accepting their theories, which are forced 
upon the mind of every thoughtful and intelligent man, who has 
taken the trouble to instruct himself in the elements of natural 
knowledge ? 

Some time ago I attended a large meeting of the clergy, for 
the purpose of delivering an address which I had been invited to 
give. I spoke of some of the most elementary facts in physical 
science, and of the manner in which they directly contradict 
certain of the ordinary teachings of the clergy. The result was, 
that, after I had finished, one section of the assembled ecclesias- 
tics attacked me with all the intemperance of pious zeal, for 
stating facts and conclusions which no competent judge doubts; 
while, after the first speakers had subsided, amidst the cheers of 
the great majority of their colleagues, the more rational minority 
rose to tell me that I had taken wholly superfluous pains, that 
they already knew all about what I had told them, and perfectly 
agreed with me. A hard-headed friend of mine, who was present, 
put the not unnatural question, " Then why don't you say so in 
your pulpits?" to which inquiry I heard no reply. 

In fact the clergy are at present divisible into three sections: 
an immense body who are ignorant and speak out; a small pro- 



64 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

portion who know and are silent; and a minute minority who 
know and speak according to their knowledge. By the clergy, 
I mean especially the Protestant clergy. Our great antagonist 

— I speak as a man of science — the Roman Catholic Church, the 
one great spiritual organisation which is able to resist, and must, 
as a matter of life and death, resist, the progress of science and 
modern civilisation, manages her affairs much better. 

It was my fortune some time ago to pay a visit to one of the 
most important of the institutions in which the clergy of the 
Roman Catholic Church in these islands are trained; and it 
seemed to me that the difference between these men and the 
comfortable champions of Anglicanism and of Dissent, was com- 
parable to the difference between our gallant Volunteers and the 
trained veterans of Napoleon's Old Guard. 

The Catholic priest is trained to know his business, and do it 
effectually. The professors of the college in question, learned, 
zealous, and determined mien, permitted me to speak frankly with 
them. "We talked like outposts of opposed armies during a truce 

— as friendly enemies ; and when I ventured to point out the 
difficulties their students would have to encounter from scientific 
thought, they replied : " Our Church has lasted many ages, and 
has passed safely through many storms. The present is but a 
new gust of the old tempest, and we do not turn out our young 
men less fitted to weather it, than they have been, in former 
times, to cope with the difficulties of those times. The heresies 
of the day are explained to them by their professors of philosophy 
and science, and they are taught how those heresies are to be 
met." 

I heartily respect an organisation which faces its enemies in 
this way ; and I wish that all ecclesiastical organisations were in as 
effective a condition. I think it would be better, not only for 
them, but for us. The army of liberal thought is, at present, in 
very loose order; and many a spirited free-thinker makes use of 
his freedom mainly to vent nonsense. We should be the better 
for a vigorous and watchful enemy to hammer us into cohesion 
and discipline; and I, for one, lament that the bench of Bishops 
cannot show a man of the calibre of Butler of the " Analogy," 
who, if he were alive, would make short work of much of the 
current a priori " infidelity." 

I hope you will consider that the arguments I have now stated, 
even if there were no better ones, constitute a sufficient apology 
for urging the introduction of science into schools. The next 
question to which 1 have to address myself is. What sciences 



SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION 65 

ought to be thus taught? And this is one of the most important 
of questions, because my side (I am afraid I am a terribly candid 
friend) sometimes spoils its cause by going in for too much. 
There are other forms of culture beside physical science; and I 
should be profoundly sorry to see the fact forgotten, or even to 
observe a tendency to starve, or cripple, literary, or aesthetic, cul- 
ture for the sake of science. Such a narrow view of the nature 
of education has nothing to do with my firm conviction that a 
complete and thorough scientific culture ought to be introduced 
into all schools. By this, however, I do not mean that every 
schoolboy should be taught everything in science. That would 
be a very absurd thing to conceive, and a very mischievous thing 
to attempt. What I mean is, that no boy nor girl should leave 
school without possessing a grasp of the general character of 
science, and without having been disciplined, more or less, in the 
methods of all sciences; so that, when turned into the world to 
make their own way, they shall be prepared to face scientific 
problems, not by knowing at once the conditions of every problem, 
or by being able at once to solve it ; but by being familiar with the 
general current of scientific thought, and by being able to apply 
the methods of science in the proper way, when they have ac- 
quainted themselves with the conditions of the special problem. 

That is what I understand by scientific education. To furnish 
a boy with such an education, it is by no means necessary that 
he should devote his whole school existence to physical science: 
in fact, no one would lament so one-sided a proceeding more than 
I. Nay more, it is not necessary for him to give up more than 
a moderate share of his time to such studies, if they be properly 
selected and arranged, and if he be trained in them in a fitting 
manner. 

I conceive the proper course to be somewhat as follows. To 
begin with, let every child be instructed in those general views of 
the phsenomena of Nature for which we have no exact English 
name. The nearest approximation to a name for what I mean, 
which we possess, is " physical geography." The Germans have a 
better, " Erdkunde " (" earth knowledge " or " geology " in its 
etymological sense), that is to say, a general knowledge of the 
earth, and what is on it, in it, and about it. If any one who has 
had experience of the ways of young children will call to mind 
their questions, he will find that so far as they can be put into any 
scientific category, they come under this head of " Erdkunde." 
The child asks, " What is the moon, and why does it shine ?" 
" What is this water, and where does it run ?" " What is the 
wind i" " What makes this wave in the sea ?" " Where does this 



66 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

animal live, and what is the use of that plant?" And if not 
snubbed and stunted by being told not to ask foolish questions, 
there is no limit to the intellectual craving of a young child; nor 
any bounds to the slow, but solid, accretion of knowledge and de- 
velopment of the thinking faculty in this way. To all such ques- 
tions, answers which are necessarily incomplete, though true as 
far as they go, may be given by any teacher whose ideas represent 
real knowledge and not mere book learning; and a panoramic view 
of Nature, accompanied by a strong infusion of the scientific habit 
of mind, may thus be placed within the reach of every child of 
nine or ten. 

After this preliminary opening of the eyes to the great spectacle 
of the daily progress of Nature, as the reasoning faculties of the 
child grow, and he becomes familiar with the use of the tools of 
knowledge — reading, writing, and elementary mathematics — he 
should pass on to what is, in the more strict sense, physical 
science. Now there are two kinds of physical science: the one 
regards form and the relation of forms to one another; the other 
deals with causes and effects. In many of what we term sciences, 
these two kinds are mixed up together; but systematic botany is 
a pure example of the former kind, and physics of the latter kind, 
of science. Every educational advantage which training in phys- 
ical science can give is obtainable from the proper study of these 
two; and I should be contented, for the present, if they, added to 
our " Erdkunde," furnished the whole of the scientific curriculum 
of school. Indeed, I conceive it would be one of the greatest 
boons which could be conferred upon England, if henceforward 
every child in the country were instructed in the general knowl- 
edge of the things about it, in the elements of physics, and of 
botany. But I should be still better pleased if there could be 
added somewhat of chemistry, and an elementary acquaintance 
with human physiology. 

So far as school education is concerned, I want to go no fur- 
ther just now; and I believe that such instruction would make an 
excellent introduction to that preparatory scientific training 
which, as I have indicated, is so essential for the successful pur- 
suit of our most important professions. But this modicum of 
instruction must be so given as to ensure real knowledge and 
practical discipline. If scientific education is to be dealt with as 
mere bookwork, it will be better not to attempt it, but to stick to 
the Latin Grammar which makes no pretence to be anything but 
bookwork. 

If the great benefits of scientific training are sought, it is essen- 
tial that such training should be real: that is to say, that the 



SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION 67 

mind of the scholar should be brought into direct relation with 
fact, that he should not merely be told a thing, but made to see 
by the use of his own intellect and ability that the thing is so 
and no otherwise. The great peculiarity of scientific training, 
that in virtue of which it cannot be replaced by any other disci- 
pline whatsoever, is this bringing of the mind directly into contact 
with fact, and practising the intellect in the completest form of 
induction; that is to say, in drawing conclusions from particular 
facts made known by immediate observation of Nature. 

The other studies which enter into ordinary education do not 
discipline the mind in this way. Mathematical training is almost 
purely deductive. The mathematician starts with a few simple 
propositions, the proof of which is so obvious that they are called 
self-evident, and the rest of his work consists of subtle deductions 
from them. The teaching of languages, at any rate as ordinarily 
practised, is of the same general nature, — authority and tradi- 
tion furnish the data, and the mental operations of the scholar 
are deductive. 

Again: if history be the subject of study, the facts are still 
taken upon the evidence of tradition and authority. You cannot 
make a boy see the battle of Thermopylae for himself, or know, 
of his own knowledge, that Cromwell once ruled England. There 
is no getting into direct contact with natural fact by this road; 
there is no dispensing with authority, but rather a resting upon it. 

In all these respects, science differs from other educational dis- 
cipline, and prepares the scholar for common life. What have we 
to do in every-day life? Most of the business which demands our 
attention is matter of fact, which needs. In the first place, to be 
accurately observed or apprehended ; in the second, tO' be interpreted 
by inductive and deductive reasonings, which are altogether sim- 
ilar in their nature to those employed in science. In the one case, 
as in the other, whatever is taken for granted is so taken at one's 
own peril ; fact and reason are the ultimate arbiters, and patience 
and honesty are the great helpers out of difficulty. 

But if scientific training is to yield its most eminent results, it 
must, I repeat, be made practical. That is to say, in explaining 
to a child the general phsenomena of Nature, you must, as far as 
possible, give reality to your teaching by object-lessons; in teach- 
ing him botany, he must handle the plants and dissect the flowers 
for himself; in teaching him physics and chemistry, you must 
not be solicitous to fill him with information, but you must be 
careful that what he learns he knows of his own knowledge. 
Don't be satisfied with telling him that a magnet attracts iron. 
Let him see that it does ; let him feel the pull of the one upon the 



68 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

other for himself. And, especially, tell him that it ^o his duty to 
doubt until he is compelled, by the absolute authority of Nature, 
to believe that which is written. in books. Pursue this discipline 
carefully and conscientiously, and you may make sure that, 
however scanty may be the measure of information which you 
have poured into the boy's mind, you have created an intellectual 
habit of priceless value in practical life. 

One is constantly asked, When should this scientific education 
be commenced? I should say with the dawn of intelligence. 
As I have already said, a child seeks for information about mat- 
ters of physical science as soon as it begins to talk. The first 
teaching it wants is an object-lesson of one sort or another; and 
as soon as it is fit for systematic instruction of any kind, it is 
fit for a modicum of science. 

People talk of the difficulty of teaching young children such 
matters, and in the same breath insist upon their learning their 
Catechism, which contains propositions far harder to comprehend 
than anything in the educational course I have proposed. Again: 
I am incessantly told that we, who advocate the introduction of 
science in schools, make no allowance for the stupidity of the 
average boy or girl; but, in my belief, that stupidity, in nine 
cases out of ten, " iit, non nascitur," and is developed by a long 
process of parental and pedagogic repression of the natural 
intellectual appetites, accompanied by a persistent attempt to 
create artificial ones for food which is not only tasteless, but 
essentially indigestible. 

Those who urge the difficulty of instructing young people in 
science are apt to forget another very important condition of 
success — important in all kinds of teaching, but most essential, 
I am disposed to think, when the scholars are very young. This 
condition is, that the teacher should himjself really and practically 
know his subject. If he does, he will be able to speak of it in 
the easy language, and with the completeness of conviction, with 
which he talks of any ordinary every-day matter. If he does 
not, he will be afraid to wander beyond the limits of the tech- 
nical phraseology which he has got up; and a dead dogmatism, 
which oppresses, or raises opposition, will take the place of the 
lively confidence, born of personal conviction, which cheers and 
encourages the eminently sympathetic mind of childhood. 

I have already hinted that such scientific training as we seek for 
may be given without making any extravagant claim upon the 
time now devoted to education. We ask only for " a most fa- 
voured nation " clause in our treaty with the schoolmaster ; we 
demand no more than that science shall have as much time 



SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION 69 

given to it as any other single subject — say four hours a week 
in each class of an ordinary school. 

For the present, I think men of science would be well content 
with such an arrangement as this; but speaking for myself, 
I do not pretend to believe that such an arrangement can be, 
or will be, permanent. In these times the educational tree seems 
to me to have its roots in the air, its leaves and flowers in the 
ground; and, I confess, I should very much like to turn it upside 
down, so that its roots might be solidly embedded among the 
facts of Nature, and draw thence a sound nutriment for the 
foliage and fruit of literature and of art. No educational sys- 
tem can have a claim to permanence, unless it recognises the 
truth that education has two great ends to which everything 
else must be subordinated. The one of these is to increase 
knowledge ; the other is to develop the love of right and the hatred 
of wrong. 

With wisdom and uprightness a nation can make its way 
worthily, and beauty will follow in the footsteps of the two, even 
if she be not specially invited; while there is perhaps no sight 
in the whole world more saddening and revolting than is offered 
by men sunk in ignorance of everything but what other men have 
written; seemingly devoid of moral belief or guidance; but with 
the sense of beauty so keen, and the power of expression so culti- 
vated, that their sensual caterwauling may be almost mistaken 
for the music of the spheres. 

At present, education is almost entirely devoted to the cultiva- 
tion of the power of expression, and of the sense of literary beauty. 
The matter of having anything to say, beyond a hash of other 
people's opinions, or of possessing any criterion of beauty, so 
that we may distinguish between the Godlike and the devilish, 
is left aside as of no moment. I think I do not err in saying that 
if science were made a foundation of education, instead of being, 
at most, stuck on as cornice to the edifice, this state of things 
could not exist. 

In advocating the introduction of physical science as a leading 
element in education, I by no means refer only to the higher 
schools. On the contrary, I believe that such a change is even 
more imperatively called for m those primary schools, in which 
the children of the poor are expected to turn to the best account 
the little time they can devote to the acquisition of knowledge. 
A great step in this direction has already been made by the 
establishment of science-classes under the Department of Science 
and Art, — a measure which came into existence unnoticed, but 
which will, I believe, turn out to be of more importance to 



70 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

the welfare of the people than many political changes over which 
the noise of battle has rent the air. 

Under the regulations to which I refer, a schoolmaster can set 
up a class in one or more branches of science; his pupils will 
be examined, and the State will pay him, at a certain rate, for all 
who succeed in passing. I have acted as an examiner under 
this system from the beginning of its establishment, and this 
year I expect to have not fewer than a couple of thousand sets of 
answers to questions in Physiology, mainly from young people of 
the artisan class, who have been taught in the schools which 
are now scattered all over Great Britain and Ireland. Some 
of my colleagues, who have to deal with subjects such as Geom- 
etry, for which the present teaching power is better organised, 
I understand are likely to have three or four times as many 
papers. So far as my own subjects are concerned, I can under- 
take to say that a great deal of the teaching, the results of 
which are before me in these examinations, is very sound and 
good; and I think it is in the power of the examiners, not only 
to keep up the present standard, but to cause an almost un- 
limited improvement. Now what does this mean? It means 
that by holding out a very moderate inducement, the masters of 
primary schools in many parts of the country have been led to con- 
vert them into little foci of scientific instruction; and that they 
and their pupils have contrived to find, or to make, time enough 
to carry out this object with a very considerable degree of effi- 
ciency. That efficiency will, I doubt not, be very much increased 
as the system becomes known and perfected, even with the very 
limited leisure left to masters and teachers on week-days. And 
this leads me to ask. Why should scientific teaching be limited 
to week-days? 

Ecclesiastically-minded persons are in the habit of calling 
things they do not like by very hard names, and I should not 
wonder if they brand the proposition I am about to make as 
blasphemous, and worse. But, not minding this, I venture to 
ask. Would there really be anything wrong in using part "of 
Sunday for the purpose of instructing those who have no other 
leisure, in a knowledge of the phsenomena of Nature, and of man's 
relation to Nature? 

I should like to see a scientific Sunday-school in every parish, 
not for the purpose of superseding any existing means of teaching 
the people the things that are for their good, but side by side 
with them. I cannot but think that there is room for all of 
us to work in helping to bridge over the great abyss of igno- 
rance which lies at our feet. 



SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION 71 

And if any of the ecclesiastical persons to whom I have referred 
object that they find it derogatory to the honour of the God whom 
they worship, to awaken the minds of the young to the infinite 
wonder and majesty of the works which they proclaim His, and to 
teach them those laws which must needs be His laws, and there- 
fore of all things needful for man to know — I can only recom- 
mend them to be let blood and put on low diet. There must 
be something very wrong going on in the instrument of logic if it 
turns out such conclusions from such premises. 



72 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 



VI. 

SCIENCE AND CULTUEE. 

SEX years ago, as some of my present hearers may remember, 
I had the privilege of addressing a large assemblage of the 
inhabitants of this city, who had gathered together to do 
honour to the memory of their famous townsman, Joseph Priest- 
ley;* and, if any satisfaction attaches to posthumous glory, we 
may hope that the manes of the burnt-out philosopher were then 
finally appeased. 

No man, however, who is endowed with a fair share of com- 
mon sense, and not more than a fair share of vanity, will identify 
either contemporary or posthumous fame with the highest good; 
and Priestley's life leaves no doubt that he, at any rate, set a 
much higher value upon the advancement of knowledge, and the 
promotion of that freedom of thought which is at once the 
cause and the consequence of intellectual progress. 

Hence I am disposed to think that, if Priestley could be amongst 
us to-day, the occasion of our meeting would afford him even 
greater pleasure than the proceedings which celebrated the cen- 
tenary of his chief discovery. The kindly heart would be moved, 
the high sense of social duty would be satisfied, by the spectacle 
of well-earned wealth neither squandered in tawdry luxury and 
vainglorious show, nor scattered with the careless charity which 
blesses neither him that gives nor him that takes, but expended 
in the execution of a well-considered plan for the aid of present 
and future generations of those who are willing to help them- 
selves. 

We shall all be of one mind thus far. But it is needful to 
share Priestley's keen interest in physical science; and to have 
learned, as he had learned, the value of scientific training in 
fields of inquiry apparently far remote from physical science; 
in order to appreciate, as he would have appreciated, the value of 
the noble gift which Sir Josiah Mason has bestowed upon the 
inhabitants of the Midland district. 

Eor us children of the nineteenth century, however, the estab- 
lishment of a college under the conditions of Sir Josiah Mason's 

* Birmingham, 



SCIENCE AND CULTURE 73 

Trust, has a significance apart from any which it could have 
possessed a hundred years ago. It appears to be an indication 
that we are reaching the crisis of the battle, or rather of the 
long series of battles, which have been fought over education in a 
campaign which began long before Priestley's time, and will 
probably not be finished just yet. 

In the last century, the combatants were the champions of 
ancient literature on the one side, and those of modern literature 
on the other ; but, some thirty years * ago, the contest became 
complicated by the appearance of a third army, ranged round 
the banner of Physical Science. 

I am not aware that any one has authority to speak in the 
name of this new host. Por it must be admitted to be somewhat of 
a guerilla force, composed largely of irregulars, each of whom 
fights pretty much for his own hand. But the impressions of a 
full private, who has seen a good deal of service in the ranks, 
respecting the present position of affairs and the conditions of a 
permanent peace, may not be devoid of interest; and I do not 
know that I could make a better use of the present opportunity 
than by laying them before you. 

From the time that .the first suggestion to introduce physical 
science into ordinary education was timidly whispered, until now, 
the advocates of scientific education have met with opposition 
of two kinds. On the one hand, they have been pooh-poohed by 
the men of business who pride themselves on being the representa- 
tives of practicality; while, on the other hand, they have been 
excommunicated by the classical scholars, in their capacity of 
Levites in charge of the ark of culture and monopolists of liberal 
education. 

The practical men believed that the idol whom they worship 
— rule of thumb — has been the source of the past prosperity, and 
will suffice for the future welfare of the arts and manufactures. 
They were of opinion that science is speculative rubbish; that 
theory and practice have nothing to do with one another; and 
that the scientific habit of mind is an impediment, rather than an 
aid, in the conduct of ordinary affairs. 

I have used the past tense in speaking of the practical men — 
for although they were very formidable thirty years ago, I am not 
sure that the pure species has not been extirpated. In fact, 
so far as mere argument goes, they have been subjected to such 

*The advocacy of the introduction of physical science into general 
education by George Combe and others commenced^ a good deal earlier ; 
but the movement had acquired hardly any practical force before the 
time to which I refer. 



t4 Science and education 

a feu d'enfer that it is a miracle if any have escaped. But I have 
remarked that your typical practical man has an unexpected re- 
semblance to one of Milton's angels. His spiritual wounds, such 
as are inflicted by logical weapons, may be as deep as a well and as 
wide as a church door, but beyond shedding a few drops of ichor, 
celestial or otherwise, he is no whit the worse. So, if any of these 
opponents be left, I will not waste time in vain repetition of the 
demonstrative evidence of the practical value of science; but 
knowing that a parable will sometimes penetrate where syllogisms 
fail to effect an entrance, I will offer a story for their considera- 
tion. 

Once upon a time, a boy, with nothing to depend upon but his 
own vigorous nature, was thrown into the thick of the struggle for 
existence in the midst of a great manufacturing population. He 
seems to have had a hard fight, inasmuch as, by the time he was 
thirty years of age, his total disposable funds amounted to twenty 
pounds. Nevertheless, middle life found him giving proof of his 
comprehension of the practical problems he had been roughly called 
upon to solve, by a career of remarkable prosperity. 

Finally, having reached old age with its well-earned surround- 
ings of "honour, troops of friends," the hero of my story be- 
thought himself of those who were making a like start in life, and 
how he could stretch out a helping hand to them. 

After long and anxious reflection this successful practical man 
of business could devise nothing better than to provide them 
with the means of obtaining " sound, extensive, and practical 
scientific knowledge." And he devoted a large part of his wealth 
and five years of incessant work to this end. 

I need not point the moral of a tale which, as the solid and 
spacious fabric of the Scientific College assures us, is no fable, 
nor can anything which I could say intensify the force of this 
practical answer to practical objections. 

We may take it for granted then, that, in the opinion of 
those best qualified to judge, the diffusion of thorough scientific 
education is an absolutely essential condition of industrial prog- 
ress; and that the College which has been opened to-day will 
confer an inestimable boon upon those whose livelihood is to be 
gained by the practise of the arts and manufactures of the dis- 
trict. 

The only question worth discussion is, whether the conditions, 
under which the work of the College is to be carried out, are such 
as to give it the best possible chance of achieving permanent suc- 
cess. 



SCIENCE AND CULTURE 75 

Sir Josiah Mason, without doubt most wisely, has left very 
large freedom of action to the trustees, to whom he proposes 
ultimately to commit the administration of the College, so that 
they may be able to adjust its arrangements in accordance with the 
changing conditions of the future. But, with respect to three 
points, he has laid most explicit injunctions upon both adminis- 
trators and teachers. 

Party politics are forbidden to enter into the minds of either, 
so far as the work of the College is concerned; theology is as 
sternly banished from its precincts; and finally, it is especially 
declared that the College shall make no provision for " mere liter- 
ary instruction and education." 

It does not concern me at present to dwell upon the first two 
injunctions any longer than may be needful to express my full 
conviction of their wisdom. But the third prohibition brings us 
face to face with those other opponents of scientific education, 
who are by no means in the moribund condition of the practical 
man, but alive, alert, and formidable. 

It is not impossible that we shall hear this express exclusion 
of " literary instruction and education " from a College which, 
nevertheless, professes to give a high and efficient education, 
sharply criticised. Certainly the time was that the Levites of 
culture would have sounded their trumpets against its walls as 
against an educational Jericho. 

How often have we not been told that the study of physical 
science is incompetent to confer culture; that it touches none 
of the higher problems of life; and, what is worse, that the 
continual devotion to scientific studies tends to generate a narrow 
and bigoted belief in the applicability of scientific methods to the 
search after truth of all kinds? How frequently one has reason 
to observe that no reply to a troublesome argument tells so well as 
calling its author a " mere scientific specialist." And, as I am 
afraid it is not permissible to speak of this form of opposition to 
scientific education in the past tense; may we not expect tO' be 
told that this, not only omission, but prohibition, of " mere liter- 
ary instruction and education" is a patent example of scientific 
narrow-mindedness ? 

I am not acquainted with Sir Josiah Mason's reasons for the 
action which he has taken; but if, as I apprehend is the case, he 
refers to the ordinary classical course of our schools and uni- 
versities by the name of " mere literary instruction and educa- 
tion," I venture to offer sundry reasons of my own in support 
of that action. 

Eor I hold very strongly by two convictions — The first is, 



76 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

that neither the discipline nor the subject-matter of classical edu- 
cation is of such direct value to the student of physical science 
as to justify the expenditure of valuable time upon either ; and the 
second is, that for the purpose of attaining real culture, an 
exclusively scientific education is at least as effectual as an 
exclusively literary education. 

I need hardly point out to you that these opinions, especially 
the latter, are diametrically opposed to those of the great major- 
ity of educated Englishmen, influenced as they are by school and 
university traditions. In their belief, culture is obtainable only 
by a liberal education; and a liberal education is synonymous, not 
merely with education and instruction in literature, but in one 
particular form of literature, namely, that of Greek and Roman 
antiquity. They hold that the man who has learned Latin and 
Greek, however little, is educated; while he who is versed in other 
branches of knowledge, however deeply, is a more or less respec- 
table specialist, not admissible into the cultured caste. The stamp 
of the educated man, the University degree, is not for him. 

I am too well acquainted with the generous catholicity of spirit, 
the true sympathy with scientific thought, which pervades the 
writings of our chief apostle of culture to identify him with these 
opinions; and yet one may cull from one and another of those 
epistles to the Philistines, which so much delight all who do not 
answer to that name, sentences which lend them some support. 

Mr. Arnold tells us that the meaning of culture is " to know the 
best that has been thought and said in the world." It is the criti- 
cism of life contained in literature. That criticism regards " Eu- 
rope as being, for intellectual and spiritual purposes, one great 
confederation, bound to a joint action and working to a common 
result ; and whose members have, for their common outfit, a knowl- 
edge of Greek, Roman, and Eastern antiquity, and of one another. 
Special, local, and temporary advantages being put out of ac- 
count, that modern nation will in the intellectual and spiritual 
sphere make most progress, which most thoroughly carries out 
this programme. And what is that but saying that we too, all of 
us, as individuals, the more thoroughly we carry it out, shall 
make the more progress ? " * 

We have here to deal with two distinct propositions. The first, 
that a criticism of life is the essence of culture; the second, 
that literature contains the materials which suffice for the con- 
struction of such criticism. 

I think that we must all assent to the first proposition. For 
culture certainly means something quite different from learning 

* Essays in Criticism, n. S7, 



SCIENCE AND CULTURE 77 

or technical skill. It implies the possession of an ideal, and the 
habit of critically estimating the value of things by comparison 
with a theoretic standard. Perfect culture should supply a com- 
plete theory of life, based upon a clear knowledge alike of its 
possibilities and of its limitations. 

But we may agree to all this, and yet strongly dissent from the 
assumption that literature alone is competent to supply this knowl- 
edge. After having learnt all that Greek, Roman, and Eastern 
antiquity have thought and said, and all that modern literature 
have to tell us, it is not self-evident that we have laid a sufficiently 
broad and deep foundation for that criticism of life, which con- 
stitutes culture. 

Indeed, to any one acquainted with the scope of physical science, 
it is not at all evident. Considering progress only in the " in- 
tellectual and spiritual sphere," I find myself wholly unable to 
admit that either nations or individuals will really advance, if 
their common outfit draws nothing from the stores of physical 
science. I should say that an army, without weapons of precision 
and with no particular base of operations, might more hopefully 
enter upon a campaign on the Hhine, than a man, devoid of a 
knowledge of what physical science has done in the last century, 
upon a criticism of life. 

When a biologist meets with an anomaly, he instinctively turns 
to the study of development to clear it up. The rationale of 
contradictory opinions may with equal confidence be sought in 
history. 

It is, happily, no new thing that Englishmen should employ 
their wealth in building and endowing institutions for educa- 
tional purposes. But, five or six hundred years ago, deeds of 
foundation expressed or implied conditions as nearly as possible 
contrary to those which have been thought expedient by Sir Josiah 
Mason. That is to say, physical science was practically ignored, 
while a certain literary training was enjoined as a means to the 
acquirement of knowledge which was essentially theological. 

The reason of this singular contradiction between the actions 
of men alike animated by a strong and disinterested desire to 
promote the welfare of their fellows, is easily discovered. 

At that time, in fact, if any one desired knowledge beyond such 
as could be obtained by his own observation, or by common con- 
versation, his first necessity was to learn the Latin language, 
inasmuch as all the higher knowledge of the western world was 
contained in works written in that language. Hence, Latin gram- 
mar, with logic and rhetoric, studied through Latin, were the 



78 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

fundamentals of education. With respect to the substance of the 
knowledge imparted through this channel, the Jewish and Chris- 
tian Scriptures, as interpreted and supplemented by the Romish 
Church, were held to contain a complete and infallibly true body 
of information. 

Theological dicta were, to the thinkers of those days, that which 
the axioms and definitions of Euclid are to the geometers 
of these. The business of the philosophers of the middle ages 
was to deduce from the data furnished by the theologians, con- 
clusions in accordance with ecclesiastial decrees. They were al- 
lowed the high privilege of showing, by logical process, how and 
why that which the Church said was true, must be true. And if 
their demonstrations fell short of or exceeded this limit, the 
Church was maternally ready to check their aberrations; if need 
were by the help of the secular arm. 

Between the two our ancestors were furnished with a compact 
and complete criticism of life. They were told how the world be- 
gan and how it would end; they learned that all material exist- 
ence was but a base and insignificant blot upon the fair face of 
the spiritual world, and that nature was, to all intents and pur- 
poses, the play-ground of the devil; they learned that the earth is 
the centre of the visible universe, and that man is the cynosure 
of things terrestrial, and more especially was it inculcated that 
the course of nature had no fixed order, but that it could be, and 
constantly was, altered by the agency of innumerable spiritual 
beings, good and bad, according as they were moved by the deeds 
and prayers of men. The sum and substance of the whole doc- 
trine was to produce the conviction that the only thing really worth 
knowing in this world was how to secure that place . in a better 
which, under certain conditions, the Church promised. 

Our ancestors had a living belief in this theory of life, and 
acted upon it in their dealings with education, as in all other mat- 
ters. Culture meant saintliness — after the fashion of the saints 
of those days; the education that led to it was, of necessity, theo- 
logical; and the way of theology lay through Latin. 

That the study of nature — further than was requisite for the 
satisfaction of everyday wants — should have any bearing on 
human life was far from the thoughts of men thus trained. In- 
deed, as nature had been cursed for man's sake, it was an ob- 
vious conclusion that those who meddled with nature were likely 
to come into pretty close contact with Satan. And, if any born 
scientific investigator followed his instincts, he might safely reckon 
upon earning the reputation, and probably upon suffering the fate 
of a sorcerer. 



SCIENCE AND CULTURE 79 

Had the western world been left to itself in Chinese isolation, 
there is no saying how long this state of things might have en- 
dured. But, happily, it was not left to itself. Even earlier than 
the thirteenth century, the development of Moorish civilisation in 
Spain and the great movement of the Crusades had introduced the 
leaven which, from that day to this, has never ceased to work. 
At first, through the intermediation of Arabic translations, after- 
wards by the study of the originals, the western nations of Europe 
became acquainted with the writings of the ancient philosophers 
and poets, and, in time, with the whole of the vast literature of 
antiquity. 

Whatever there was of high intellectual aspiration or dominant 
capacity in Italy, France, Germany, and England, spent itself 
for centuries in taking possession of the rich inheritance left by 
the dead civilisations of Greece and Eome. Marvellously aided 
by the invention of printing, classical learning spread and flour- 
ished. Those who possessed it prided themselves on having at- 
tained the highest culture then within the reach of mankind. 

And justly. For, saving Dante on his solitary pinnacle, there 
was no figure in modern literature at the time of the Renascence 
to compare with the men of antiquity ; there was no art to compete 
with their sculpture ; there was no physical science but that which 
Greece had created. Above all, there was no other example of per- 
fect intellectual freedom — of the unhesitating acceptance of 
reason as the sole guide to truth and the supreme arbiter of con- 
duct. 

The new learning necessarily soon exerted a profound influence 
upon education. The language of the monks and schoolmen 
seemed little better than gibberish to scholars fresh from Virgil 
and Cicero, and the study of Latin was placed upon a new founda- 
tion. Moreover, Latin itself ceased to afford the sole key to 
knowledge. The student who sought the highest thought of an- 
tiquity, found only a second-hand reflection of it in Roman liter- 
ature, and turned his face to the full light of the Greeks. And 
after a battle, not altogether dissimilar to that which is at present 
being fought over the teaching of physical science, the study of 
Greek was recognised as an essential element of all higher educa- 
tion. 

Then the Humanists, as they were called, won the day; and the 
great reform which they effected was of incalculable service to 
mankind. But the Nemesis of all reformers is finality; and the 
reformers of education, like those of religion, fell into the pro- 
found, however common, error of mistaking the beginning for the 
end of the work of reformation. 



80 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

The representatives of the Humanists, in the nineteenth cen- 
tury, take their stand upon classical education as the sole avenue 
to culture, as firmly as if we were still in the age of Kenascence. 
Yet, surely, the present intellectual relations of the modern and 
the ancient worlds are profoundly different from those which ob- 
tained three centuries ago. Leaving aside the existence of a great 
and characteristically modern literature, of modem painting, 
and, especially, of modern music, there is one feature of the 
present state of the civilised world which separates it more widely 
from the Renascence, than the Renascence was separated from the 
middle ages. 

This distinctive character of our own times lies in the vast and 
constantly increasing part which is played by natural knowledge. 
ISTot only is our daily life shaped by it, not only does the pros- 
perity of millions of men depend upon it, but our whole theory 
of life has long been influenced, consciously or unconsciously, 
by the general conceptions of the universe, which have been forced 
upon us by physical science. 

In fact, the most elementary acquaintance with the results of 
scientific investigation shows us that they offer a broad and strik- 
ing contradiction to the opinion so implicitly credited and taught 
in the middle ages. 

The notions of the beginning and the end of the world enter- 
tained by our forefathers are no longer credible. It is very 
certain that the earth is not the chief body in the material uni- 
verse, and that the world is not subordinated to man's use. It is 
even more certain that nature is the expression of a definite order 
with which nothing interferes, and that the chief business of man- 
kind is to learn that order and govern themselves accordingly. 
Moreover this scientific " criticism of life " presents itself to us 
with different credentials from any other. It appeals not to 
authority, nor to what anybody may have thought or said, but 
to nature. It admits that all our interpretations of natural fact 
are more or less imperfect and symbolic, and bids the learner 
seek for truth not among words but among things. It warns us 
that the assertion which outstrips evidence is not only a blunder 
but a crime. 

The purely classical education advocated by the representatives 
of the Humanists in our day, gives no inkling of all this. A 
man may be a better scholar than Erasmus, and know no more 
of the chief causes of the present intellectual fermentation than 
Erasmus did. Scholarly and pious persons, worthy of all respect, 
favour us with allocutions upon the sadness of the antagonism 
of science to their mediaeval way of thinking, which betray an 



SCIENCE AND CULTURE 81 

ignorance of the first principles of scientific investigation, an 
incapacity for understanding what a man of science means by 
veracity, and an unconsciousness of the weight of established 
scientific truths, which is almost comical. 

There is no great force in the tu quoque argument, or else the 
advocates of scientific education might fairly enough retort upon 
the modern Humanists that they may be learned specialists, but 
that they possess no such sound foundation for a criticism of life 
as deserves the name of culture. And, indeed, if we were dis- 
posed to be cruel, we might urge that the Humanists have brought 
this reproach upon themselves, not because they are too full of 
the spirit of the ancient Greek, but because they lack it. 

The period of the Renascence is commonly called that of the 
" Revival of Letters," as if the influences then brought to bear 
upon the mind of Western Europe had been wholly exhausted 
in the field of literature. I think it is very commonly forgotten 
that the revival of science, effected by the same agency, although 
less conspicuous, was not less momentous. 

In fact, the few and scattered students of nature of that day 
picked up the clue to her secrets exactly as it fell from the hands 
of the Greeks a thousand years before. The foundations of 
mathematics were so well laid by them, that our children learn 
their geometry from a book written for the schools of Alexandria 
two thousand years ago. Modern astronomy is the natural con- 
tinuation and development of the work of Hipparchus and of 
Ptolemy; modern physics of that of Democritus and of Archi- 
medes; it was long before modern biological science outgrew the 
knowledge bequeathed to us by Aristotle, by Theophrastus, and 
by Galen. 

We cannot know all the best thoughts and sayings of the 
Greeks unless we know what they thought about natural phsenom- 
ena. We cannot fully apprehend their criticism of life unless we 
understand the extent to which that criticism was affected by 
scientific conceptions. We falsely pretend to be the inheritors of 
their culture, unless we are penetrated, as the best minds among 
them were, with an unhesitating faith that the free employment 
of reason, in accordance with scientific method, is the sole method 
of reaching truth. 

Thus I venture to think that the pretensions of our modern 
Humanists to the possession of the monopoly of culture and to the 
exclusive inheritance of the spirit of antiquity must be abated, 
if not abandoned. But I should be very sorry that anything I 
have said should be taken to imply a desire on my part to depre- 
ciate the value of classical education, as it might be and as it 



82 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

sometimes is. The native capacities of mankind vary no less 
than their opportunities; and while culture is one, the road by 
which one man may best reach it is widely different from that 
which is most advantageous to another. Again, while scientific 
education is yet inchoate and tentative, classical education is 
thoroughly well organised upon the practical experience of gener- 
ations of teachers. So that, given ample time for learning and 
estimation for ordinary life, or for a literary career, I do not 
think that a young Englishman in search of culture can do better 
than follow the course usually marked out for him, supplementing 
its deficiencies by his own efforts. 

But for those who mean to make science their serious occu- 
pation; or who intend to follow the profession of medicine; or 
who have to enter early upon the business of life; for all these, 
in my opinion, classical education is a mistake; and it is for this 
reason that I am glad to see " mere literary education and in- 
struction" shut out from the curriculum of Sir Josiah Mason's 
College, seeing that its inclusion would probably lead to the intro- 
duction of the ordinary smattering of Latin and Greek. 

Nevertheless, I am the last person to question the importance 
of genuine literary education, or to suppose that intellectual cul- 
ture can be complete without it. An exclusively scientific train- 
ing will bring about a mental twist as surely as an exclusively 
literary training. The value of the cargo does not compensate 
for a ship's being out of trim; and I should be very sorry to 
think that the Scientific College would turn out none but lop- 
sided men. 

There is no need, however, that such a catastrophe should 
happen. Instruction in English, Erench, and German is provided, 
and thus the three greatest literatures of the modern world are 
made accessible to the student. 

French and German, and especially the latter language, are 
absolutely indispensable to those who desire full knowledge in any 
department of science. But even supposing that the knowledge 
of these languages acquired is not more than sufficient for purely 
scientific purposes, every Englishman has, in his native tongue, 
an almost perfect instrument of literary expression; and, in 
his own literature, models of every kind of literary excellence. 
If an Englishman cannot get literary culture out of his Bible, 
his Shakespeare, his Milton, neither, in my belief, will the pro- 
foundest study of Homer and Sophocles, Virgil and Horace, give 
it to him. 

Thus, since the constitution of the College makes sufficient 
provision for literary as well as for scientific education, and since 



SCIENCE AND CULTURE 83 

artistic instruction is also contemplated, it seems to me that a 
fairly complete culture is offered to all who are willing to take 
advantage of it. 

But I am not sure that at this point the "practical" raan, 
scotched but not slain, may ask what all this talk about culture 
has to do with an Institution, the object of which is defined to be 
" to promote the prosperity of the manufactures and the industry 
of the country." He may suggest that what is wanted for this 
end is not culture, nor even a purely scientific discipline, but 
simply a knowledge of applied science. 

I often wish that this phrase, " applied science," had never been 
invented. For it suggests that there is a sort of scientific knowl- 
edge of direct practical use, which can be studied apart from an- 
other sort of scientific knowledge, which is of no practical utility, 
and which is termed " pure science." But there is no more com- 
plete fallacy than this. What people call applied science is noth- 
ing but the application of pure science to particular classes of 
problems. It consists of deductions from those general principles, 
established by reasoning and observation, which constitute pure 
science. No one can safely make these deductions until he has a 
firm grasp of the principles; and he can obtain that grasp only by 
personal experience of the operations of observation and of reason- 
ing on which they are founded. 

Almost all the processes employed in the arts and manufactures 
fall within the range either of physics or of chemistry. In order 
to improve them, one must thoroughly understand them; and no 
one has a chance of really understanding them, unless he has ob- 
tained that mastery of principles and that habit of dealing with 
facts, which is given by long-continued and well-directed purely 
scientific training in the physical and the chemical laboratory. So 
that there really is no. question as to the necessity of purely 
scientific discipline, even if the work of the College were limited 
by the narrowest interpretation of its stated aims. 

And, as to the desirableness of a wider culture than that yielded 
by science alone, it is to be recollected that the improvement of 
manufacturing processes is only one of the conditions which con- 
tribute to the prosperity of industry. Industry is a means and 
not an end; and mankind work only to get something which they 
want. What that something is depends partly on their innate, 
and partly on their acquired, desires. 

If the wealth resulting from prosperous industry is to be spent 
upon the gratification of unworthy desires, if the increasing per- 
fection of manufacturing processes is to be accompanied by an 



84 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

increasing debasement of those who carry them on, I do not see the 
good of industry and prosperity. 

Now it is perfectly true that men's views of what is desirable 
depend upon their characters; and that the innate proclivities 
to which we give that name are not touched by any amount of 
instruction. But it does not follow that even mere intellectual 
education may not, to an indefinite extent, modify the practical 
manifestation of the characters of men in their actions, by sup- 
plying them with motives unknown to the ignorant. A pleasure- 
loving character will have pleasure of some sort; but, if you give 
him the choice, he may prefer pleasures which do not degrade him 
to those which do. And this choice is offered to every man, who 
possesses in literary or artistic culture a never-failing source of 
pleasures, which are neither withered by age, nor staled by cus- 
tom, nor embittered in the recollection by the pangs of self- 
reproach. 

If the Institution opened to-day fulfils the intention of its 
founder, the picked intelligences among all classes of the popula- 
tion of this district will pass through it. No child born in Bir- 
mingham, henceforward, if he have the capacity to profit by the 
opportunities offered to him, first in the primary and other schools, 
and afterwards in the Scientific College, need fail to obtain, not 
merely the instruction, but the culture most appropriate to the 
conditions of his life. 

Within these walls, the future employer and the future artisan 
may sojourn together for a while, and carry, through all their lives, 
the stamp of the influences then brought to bear upon them. 
Hence, it is not beside the mark to remind you, that the prosperity 
of industry depends not merely upon the improvement of manufac- 
turing processes, not merely upon the ennobling of the individual 
character, but upon a third condition, namely, a clear understand- 
ing of the conditions of social life, on the part of both the capital- 
ist and the operative, and their agreement upon common principles 
of social action. They must learn that social phsenomena are 
as much the expression of natural laws as any others; that no 
social arrangements can be permanent unless they harmonise 
with the requirements of social statics and dynamics; and that, 
in the nature of things, there is an arbiter whose decisions execute 
themselves. 

But this knowledge is only to be obtained by the application 
of the methods of investigation adopted in physical researches to 
the investigation of the phsenomena of society. Hence, I con- 
fess, I should like to see one addition made to the excellent scheme 
of education propounded for the College, in the shape of pro- 



SCIENCE AND CULTURE 85 

vision for the teaching of Sociology. For though we are all 
agreed that party politics are to have no place in the instruction 
of the College; yet in this country, practically governed as it is 
now by universal suffrage, every man who does his duty must 
exercise political functions. And, if the evils which are insepar- 
able from the good of political liberty are to be checked, if the 
perpetual oscillation of nations between anarchy and despotism 
is to be replaced by the steady march of self -restraining freedom; 
it will be because men will gradually bring themselves to deal 
with political, as they now deal with scientific questions; to be as 
ashamed of undue haste and partisan prejudice in the one case 
as in the other; and to believe that the machinery of society is at 
least as delicate as that of a spinning-jenny, and as little likely to 
be improved by the meddling of those who have not taken the 
trouble to master the principles of its action. 

In conclusion, I am sure that I make myself the mouthpiece of 
all present in offering to the venerable founder of the Institution, 
which now commences its beneficent career, our congratulations 
on the completion of his work; and in expressing the conviction, 
that the remotest posterity will point to it as a crucial instance 
of the wisdom which natural piety leads all men to ascribe to 
their ancestors. 



86 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 



yn. 

ON SCIENCE AND AET IN RELATION TO EDUCATION. 

WHEN a man is honoured by sncli a request as that whieli 
reached me from the authorities of your institution some 
time ago, I think the first thing that occurs to him is 
that which occurred to those who were bidden to the feast in the 
Gospel — to begin to make an excuse ; and probably all the ex- 
cuses suggested on that famous occasion crop up in his mind 
one after the other, including his " having married a wife," as 
reasons for not doing what he was asked to do. But, in my own 
case, and on this particular occasion, there were other difficulties 
of a sort peculiar to the time, and more or less personal to my- 
self; because I feit that, if I came amongst you, I should be 
expected, and, indeed, morally compelled, to speak upon the sub- 
ject of Scientific Education. And then there arose in my mind 
the recollection of a fact, which probably no one here by myself 
remembers; namely, that some fourteen years ago I was a guest 
of a citizen of yours, who bears the honoured name of Eathbone, 
at a very charming and pleasant dinner given by the Philomathic 
Society; and there and then, and in this very city, made a speech 
upon the topic of Scientific Education. Under these circum- 
stances, you see, one runs two dangers — the first, of repeating 
one's self, although I may fairly hope that everybody has for- 
gotten the fact I have just now mentioned, except myself; and the 
second, and even greater difficulty, is the danger of saying some- 
thing different from what one said before, because then, however 
forgotten your previous speech may be, somebody finds out its ex- 
istence, and there goes on that process so hateful to members of 
Parliament, which may be denoted by the term " Hansardisation." 
Under these circumstances, I came to the conclusion that the best 
thing I could do was to take the bull by the horns, and to " Han- 
sardise " myself, — to put before you, in the briefest possible way, 
the three or four propositions which I endeavored to support on 
the occasion of the speech to which I have referred; and then 
to ask myself, supposing you were asking me, whether I had any- 
thing to retract, or to modify, in them, in virtue of the increased 



SCIENCE AND ART IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 87 

experience, and, let "us charitably hope, the increased wisdom, of an 
added fourteen years. 

Now, the points to which I directed particular attention on 
that occasion were these : in the first place, that instruction in 
physical science supplies information of a character of especial 
value, both in a practical and a speculative point of view — in- 
formation which cannot be obtained otherwise ; and, in the second 
place, that, as educational discipline, it supplies, in a better form 
than any other study can supply, exercise in a special form of 
logic, and a peculiar method of testing the validity of our pro- 
cesses of inquiry. I said further, that, even at that time, a great 
and increasing attention was being paid to physical science in 
our schools and colleges, and that, most assuredly, such atten- 
tion must go on growing and increasing, until education in these 
matters occupied a very much larger share of the time which is 
given to teaching and training, than had been the case hereto- 
fore. And I threw all the strength of argumentation of which 
I was possessed into the support of these propositions. But I 
venture to remind you, also, of some other words I used at that 
time, and which I ask permission to read to you. They were 
these : " There are other forms of culture besides physical sci- 
ence, and I should be profoundly sorry to see the fact forgotten, 
or even to observe a tendency to starve or cripple literary or 
aesthetic culture for the sake of science. Such a narrow view of 
the nature of education has nothing to do with my firm conclu- 
sion that a complete and thorough scientific culture ought to be 
introduced into all schools." 

I say I desire, in commenting upon these various points, and 
judging them as fairly as I can by the light of increased experi- 
ence, to particularly emphasise this last, because I am told, al- 
though I assuredly do not know it of my own knowledge — ■ 
though I think if the fact were so I ought to know it, being 
tolerably well acquainted with that which goes on in the scientific 
world, and which has gone on there for the last thirty years — ■ 
that there is a kind of sect, or horde, of scientific Goths and 
Vandals, who think it would be proper and desirable to sweep 
away all other forms of culture and instruction, except those in 
physical science, and to make them the universal and exclusive, 
or, at any rate, the dominant training of the human mind of the 
future generation. This is not my view — I do not believe that 
it is anybody's view, — but it is attributed to those who, like 
myself, advocate scientific education. I therefore dwell strongly 
upon the point, and I beg you to believe that the words I have 
just now read were by no means intended by me as a sop to 



88 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

the Cerberus of culture. I have not been in the habit of offering 
sops to any kind of Cerberus; but it was an expression of pro- 
found conviction on my own part — a conviction forced upon me 
not only by my mental constitution, but by the lessons of what is 
now becoming a somewhat long experience of varied conditions 
of life. 

I am not about to trouble you with my autobiography ; the omens 
are hardly favourable, at present, for work of that kind. But I 
should like if I may do so without appearing, what I earnestly 
desire not to be, egotistical, — I should like to make it clear to 
you, that such notions as these, which are sometimes attributed 
to me, are, as I have said, inconsistent with my mental consti- 
tution, and still more inconsistent with the upshot of the teaching 
of my experience. Por I can certainly claim for myself that sort 
of mental temperament which can say that nothing human comes 
amiss to it. I have never yet met with any branch of human 
knowledge which I have found unattractive — which it would 
not have been pleasant to me to follow, so far as I could go ; and 
I have yet to meet with any form of art in which it has not been 
possible for me to take as acute a pleasure as, I believe, it is 
possible for men to take. 

And with respect to the circumstances of life, it so happens 
that it has been my fate to know many lands and many climates, 
and to be familiar, by personal experience, with almost every form 
of society, from the uncivilised savage of Papua and Australia 
and the civilised savages of the slums and dens of the poverty- 
stricken parts of great cities, to those who perhaps, are occasionally 
the somewhat over-civilised members of our upper ten thousand. 
And I have never found, in any of these conditions of life, a 
deficiency of something which was attractive. Savagery has its 
pleasures, I assure you, as well as civilisation, and I may even 
venture to confess — if you will not let a whisper of the matter 
get back to London, where I am known — I am even fain to 
confess, that sometimes in the din and throng of what is called 
" a brilliant reception " the vision crosses my mind of waking up 
from the soft plank which had afforded me satisfactory sleep 
during the hours of the night, in the bright dawn of a tropical 
morning, when my comrades were yet asleep, when every sound 
was hushed, except the little lap-lap of the ripples against the 
sides of the boat, and the distant twitter of the sea-bird on the 
reef. And when that vision crosses my mind, I am free to con- 
fess I desire to be back in the boat again. So that, if I share 
with those strange persons to whose asserted, but still hypothetical 
existence I have referred, the want of appreciation of forms of 



SCIENCE AND ART IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 89 

culture other than the pursuit of physical science, all I can say 
is, that it is, in spite of my constitution, and in spite of my ex- 
perience, that such should be my fate. 

But now let me turn to another point, or rather to two other 
points, with which I propose to occupy myself. How far does 
the experience of the last fourteen years justify the estimate 
which I ventured to put forward of the value of scientific culture, 
and of the share — the increasing share — which it must take 
in ordinary education? Happily, in respect to that matter, you 
need not rely upon my testimony. In the last half-dozen num- 
bers of the " Journal of Education," you will find a series of very 
interesting and remarkable papers, by gentlemen who are practi- 
cally engaged in the business of education in our great public and 
other schools, telling us what is doing in these schools, and what 
is their experience of the results of scientific education there, 
so far as it has gone. I am not going to trouble you with an 
abstract of those papers which are well worth your study in their 
fulness and completeness, but I have copied out one remarkable 
passage, because it seems to me so entirely to bear out what I 
have formerly ventured to say about the value of science, both as 
to its subject-matter and as to the discipline which the learning 
of science involves. It is from a paper by Mr. Worthington — 
one of the masters at Clifton, the reputation of which school you 
know well, and at the head of which is an old friend of mine, the 
Bev. Mr. Wilson — to whom much credit is due for being one of 
the first, as I can say from my own knowledge, to take up this 
question and work it into practical shape. What Mr. Worthing- 
ton says is this : — 

" It is not easy to exaggerate the importance of the information im- 
parted by certain branches of science ; it modifies the whole criticism 
of life made in maturer years. The study has often, on a mass of boys, 
a certain influence which, I think, was hardly anticipated, and to which 
a good deal of value must be attached — an influence as much moral as 
intellectual, which is shown in the increased and increasing respect for 
precision of statement, and for that form of veracity which consists in 
the acknowledgment of diflSculties. It produces a real effect to find that 
Nature cannot be imposed upon, and the attention given to experimental 
lectures, at first superficial and curious only, soon becomes minute, seri- 
ous, and practical." 

Ladies and gentlemen, I could not have chosen better words to 
express — in fact, I have, in other words, expressed the same 
conviction in former days — what the influence of scientific teach- 
ing, if properly carried out, must be. 



00 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

But now comes the question of properly carrying it out, be- 
cause, when I hear the value of school teaching in physical 
science disputed, my first impulse is to ask the disputer, " What 
have you known about it?" and he generally tells me some lament- 
able case of failure. Then I ask, " What are the circumstances of 
the case, and how was the teaching carried out ? " I remember 
some few years ago, hearing of the head master of a large school, 
who had expressed great dissatisfaction with the adoption of the 
teaching of physical science — and that after experiment. But 
the experiment consisted in this — in asking one of the junior 
masters in the school to get up science, in order to teach it; and 
the young gentleman went away for a year and got up science 
and taught it. Well, I have no doubt that the result was as dis- 
appointing as the head-master said it was, and I have no doubt 
that it ought to have been as disappointing, and far more dis- 
appointing too; for, if this kind of instruction is to be of any 
good at all, if it is not to be less than no good, if it is to take the 
place of that which is already of some good, then there are several 
points which must be attended to. 

And the first of these is the proper selection of topics, the sec- 
ond is practical teaching, the third is practical teachers, and the 
fourth is sufficiency of time. If these four points are not care- 
fully attended to by anybody who undertakes the teaching of 
physical science in schools, my advice to him is, to let it alone. 

1 will not dwell at any length upon the first point, because there 
is a general consensus of opinion as to the nature of the topics 
which should be chosen. The second point — practical teaching — 
is one of great importance, because it requires more capital to 
set it agoing, demands more time, and, last, but by no means 
least, it requires much more personal exertion and trouble on the 
part of those professing to teach, than is the case with other kinds 
of instruction. 

When I accepted the invitation to be here this evening, your 
secretary was good enough to send me the addresses which" have 
been given by distinguished persons who have previously occu- 
pied this chair. I don't know whether he had a malicious desire 
to alarm me; but, however that may be, I read the addresses, and 
derived the greatest pleasure and profit from some of them, and 
from none more than from the one given by the great historian, 
Mr. Freeman, which delighted me most of all; and, if I had not 
been ashamed of plagiarising, and if I had not been sure of being 
found out, I should have been glad to have copied very much 
of what Mr. Freeman said, simply putting in the word science 
for history. There was one notable passage, — " The difference 



SCIENCE AND ART IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 91 

between good and bad teaching mainly consists in this, whether 
the words used are really clothed with a meaning or not." And 
Mr. Ereeman gives a remarkable example of this. He says, when 
a little girl was asked where Turkey was, she answered that it was 
in the yard with the other fowls, and that showed she had a defi- 
nite idea connected with the word Turkey, and was, so far, worthy 
of praise. I quite agree with that commendation; but what a 
curious thing it is that one should now find it necessary to urge 
that this is the be-all and end-all of scientific instruction — the 
sine qua non, the absolutely necessary condition, — and yet that it 
was insisted upon more than two hundred years ago by one of the 
greatest men science ever possessed in this country, William 
Harvey. Harvey wrote, or at least published, only two small 
books, one of which is the well-known treatise on the circulation 
of the blood. The other, the " Exercitationes de Generatione," 
is less known, but not less remarkable. And not the least valuable 
part of it is the preface, in which there occurs this passage: 
" Those who, reading the words of authors, do not form sensible 
images of the things referred to, obtain no true ideas, but conceive 
false imaginations and inane phantasms." You see, William 
Harvey's words are just the same in substance as those of Mr. 
Freeman, only they happen to be rather more than two centuries 
older. So that what I am now saying has its application else- 
where than in science; but assuredly in science the condition of 
knowing, of your own knowledge, things which you talk about, is 
absolutely imperative. 

I remember, in my youth, there were detestable books which 
ought to have been burned by the hands of the common hangman, 
for they contained questions and answers to be learned by heart, 
of this sort, " What is a horse ? The horse is termed Equus 
caballus; belongs to the class Mammalia; order, Pachydermata ; 
family, Solidungula." Was any human being wiser for learning 
that magic formula? Was he not more foolish, inasmuch as he 
was deluded into taking words for knowledge? It is that kind of 
teaching that one wants to get rid of, and banished out of science. 
Make it as little as you like, but, unless that which is taught is 
based on actual observation and familiarity with facts, it is better 
left alone. 

There are a great many people who imagine that elementary 
teaching might be properly carried out by teachers provided with 
only elementary knowledge. Let me assure you that that is the 
profoundest mistake in the world. There is nothing so difficult 
to do as to write a good elementary book, and there is nobody so 
hard to teach properly and well as people who know nothing about 



92 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

a subject, and I will tell you why. If I address an audience of 
persons who are occupied in the same line of work as myself, I 
can assume that they know a vast deal, and that they can find 
out the blunders I make. If they don't it is their fault and not 
mine; but when I appear before a body of people who know noth- 
ing about the matter, who take for gospel whatever I say, surely 
it becomes needful that I consider what I say, make sure that it 
will bear examination, and that I do not impose upon the credulity 
of those who have faith in me. In the second place, it involves 
that difficult process of knowing what you know so well that you 
can talk about it as you can talk about your ordinary business. A 
man can always talk about his own business. He can always 
make it plain; but, if his knowledge is hearsay, he is afraid to go 
beyond what he has recollected, and put it before those that are 
ignorant in such a shape that they shall comprehend it. That is 
why, to be a good elementary teacher, to teach the elements of any 
subject, requires most careful consideration, if you are a master of 
the subject; and, if you are not a master of it, it is needful you 
should familiarise yourself with so much as you are called upon 
to teach — soak yourself in it, so to speak — until you know it as 
part of your daily life and daily knowledge, and then you will be 
able to teach anybody. That is what I mean by practical teachers, 
and, although the deficiency oi -^^r-h teachers is being remedied to 
a large extent, I think it is one which has long existed, and which 
has existed from no fault of those who undertook to teach, but be- 
cause, until the last score of years, it absolutely was not possible 
for any one in a great many branches of science, whatever his 
desire might be, to get instruction which would enable him to be 
a good teacher of elementary things. All that is being rapidly 
altered, and I hope it will soon become a thing of the past. 

The last point I have referred to is the question of the suffi- 
ciency of time. And here comes the rub. The teaching of sci- 
ence needs time, as any other subject ; but it needs more time pro- 
portionately than other subjects, for the amount of work obviously 
done, if the teaching is to be, as I have said, practical. Work done 
in a laboratory involves a good deal of expenditure of time with- 
out always an obvious result, because we do not see anything of 
that quiet process of soaking the facts into the mind, which 
takes place through the organs of the senses. On this ground 
there must be ample time given to science teaching. What that 
amount of time should be is a point which I need not discuss now; 
in fact, it is a point which cannot be settled until one has made 
up one's mind about various other questions. 

All, then, that I have to ask for, on behalf of the scientific 



SCIENCE AND ART IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 93 

people, if I may venture to speak for more than myself, is that 
you should put scientific teaching into what statesmen call the 
condition of " the most favoured nation " ; that is to say, that it 
shall have as large a share of the time given to education as any 
other principal subject. You may say that that is a very vague 
statement, because the value of the allotment of time, under those 
circumstances, depends upon the number of principal subjects. 
It is X the time, and an unknown quantity of principal subjects 
dividing that, and science taking shares with the rest. That 
shows that we cannot deal with this question fully until we have 
made up our minds as to what the principal subjects of education 
ought to be. 

I know quite well that launching myself into this discussion 
is a very dangerous operation; that it is a very large subject, and 
one which is difficult to deal with, however much I may trespass 
upon your patience in the time allotted to me. But the discus- 
sion is so fundamental, it is so completely impossible to make 
up one's mind on these matters until one has settled the question, 
that I will even venture to make the experiment. A great lawyer- 
statesman and philosopher of a former age — I mean Francis 
Bacon — said that truth came out of error much more rapidly 
than it came out of confusion. There is a wonderful truth in that 
saying. Next to being right in this world, the best of all things 
is to be clearly and definitely wrong, because you will come out 
somewhere. If you go buzzing about between right and wrong, 
vibrating and fiuctuating, you come out nowhere; but if you are 
absolutely and thoroughly and persistently wrong, you must, some 
of these days, have the extreme good fortune of knocking your 
head against a fact, and that sets you all straight again. So I will 
not trouble myself as to whether I may be right or wrong in what 
I am about to say, but at any rate I hope to be clear and definite ; 
and then you will be able to judge for yourselves whether, in fol- 
lowing out the train of thought I have to introduce, you knock 
your heads against facts or not. 

I take it that the whole object of education is, in the first place, 
to train the faculties of the young in such a manner as to give 
their possessors the best chance of being happy and useful in 
their generation; and, in the second place, to furnish them with 
the most important portions of that immense capitalised ex- 
perience of the human race which we call knowledge of various 
kinds. I am using the term knowledge in its widest possible 
sense; and the question is, what subjects to select by training 
and discipline, in which the object I have just defined may be 
best attained. 



94 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

I must call your attention further to this fact, that all the 
subjects of our thoughts — all feelings and propositions (leaving 
aside our sensations as the mere materials and occasions of think- 
ing and feeling), all our mental furniture — may be classified 
under one of two heads — as either within the province of the in- 
tellect, something that can be put into propositions and affirmed 
or denied; or as within the province of feeling, or that which, 
before the name was defiled, was called the aesthetic side of our 
nature, and which can neither be proved nor disproved, but only 
felt and known. 

According to the classification which I have put before you, 
then, the subjects of all knowledge are divisible into the two 
groups, matters of science and matters of art; for all things with 
which the reasoning faculty alone is occupied, come under the 
province of science; and in the broadest sense, and not in the 
narrow and technical sense in which we are now accustomed to 
use the word art, all things feelable, all things which stir our 
emotions, come under the term of art, in the sense of the subject- 
matter of the aesthetic faculty. So that we are shut up to this — ■ 
that the business of education is, in the first place, to provide the 
young with the means and the habit of observation; and, secondly, 
to supply the subject-matter of knowledge either in the shape of 
science or of art, or of both combined. 

Now, it is a very remarkable fact — but it is true of most things 
in this world — that there is hardly anything one-sided, or of one 
nature; and it is not immediately obvious what of the things 
that interest us may be regarded as pure science, and what may 
be regarded as pure art. It may be that there are some peculiarly 
constituted persons who, before they have advanced far into the 
depths of geometry, find artistic beauty about it; but, taking the 
generality of mankind, I think it may be said that, when they be- 
gin to learn mathematics, their whole souls are absorbed in trac- 
ing the connection between the premises and the conclusion, and 
that to them geometry is pure science. So I think it may be said 
that mechanics and osteology are pure science. On the other 
hand, melody in music is pure art. You cannot reason about it; 
there is no proposition involved in it. So, again, in the pictorial 
art, an arabesque, or a " harmony in grey," touches none but the 
aesthetic faculty. But a great mathematician, and even many 
persons who are not great mathematicians, will tell you that they 
derive immense pleasure from geometrical reasonings. Everybody 
knows mathematicians speak of solutions and problems as "ele- 
gant," and they tell you that a certain mass of mystic symbols 
is " beautiful, quite lovely." Well, you do not see it. They do 



SCIENCE AND ART IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 95 

see it, because the intellectual process, the process of comprehend- 
ing the reasons symbolised by these figures and these signs, con- 
fers upon them a sort of pleasure, such as an artist has in visual 
symmetry. Take a science of which I may speak with more con- 
fidence, and which is the most attractive of those I am concerned 
with. It is what we call morphology, which consists in tracing 
out the unity in variety of the infinitely diversified structures of 
animals and plants. I cannot give you any example of a thorough 
aesthetic pleasure more intensely real than a pleasure of this kind 

— the pleasure which arises in one's mind when a whole mass of 
different structures run into one harmony as the expression of a 
central law. That is where the province of art overlays and em- 
braces the province of intellect. And, if I may venture to ex- 
press an opinion on such a subject, the great majority of forms 
of art are not in the sense what I just now defined them to be — 
pure art; but they derive much of their quality from simulta- 
neous and even unconscious excitement of the intellect. 

When I was a boy, I was very fond of music, and I am so now; 
and it so happened that I had the opportunity of hearing much 
good music. Among other things, I had abundant opportunities 
of hearing that great old master, Sebastian Bach. I remember 
perfectly well — though I knew nothing about music then, and, 
I may add, know nothing whatever about it now — the> intense 
satisfaction and delight which I had in listening, by the hour 
together, to Bach's fugues. It is a pleasure which remains with 
me, I am glad to think; but, of late years, I have tried to find out 
the why and wherefore, and it has often occurred to me that the 
pleasure derived from musical compositions of this kind is essen- 
tially of the same nature as that which is derived from pursuits 
which are commonly regarded as purely intellectual. I mean, 
that the source of pleasure is exactly the same as in most of my 
problems in morphology — that you have the theme in one of 
the old master's works followed out in all its endless variations, 
always appearing and always reminding you of unity in variety. 
So in painting; what is called "truth to nature" is the intellec- 
tual element coming in, and truth to nature depends entirely upon 
the intellectual culture of the person to whom art is addressed. 
If you are in Australia, you may get credit for being a good artist 

— I mean among the natives — if you can draw a kangaroo after 
a fashion. But, among men of higher civilisation, the intellectual 
knowledge we possess brings its criticism into our appreciation 
of works of art, and we are obliged to satisfy it, as well as the 
mere sense of beauty in colour and in outline. And so, the higher 



96 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

the culture and mformation of those whom art addresses, the 
more exact and precise must be what we call its " truth to nature." 

If we turn to literature, the same thing is true, and you find 
works of literature which may be said to be pure art. A little song 
of Shakespeare or of Goethe is pure art; it is exquisitely beau- 
tiful, although its intellectual content may be nothing. A series 
of pictures is made to pass before your mind by the meaning of 
words, and the effect is a melody of ideas. JSTevertheless, the 
great mass of the literature we esteem is valued, not merely be- 
cause of having artistic form, but because of its intellectual con- 
tent; and the value is the higher the more precise, distinct, and 
true is that intellectual content. And, if you will let me for a 
moment speak of the very highest forms of literature, do we not 
regard them as highest simply because the more we know the 
truer they seem, and the more competent we are to appreciate 
beauty the more beautiful they are? No man ever understands 
Shakespeare until he is old, though the youngest may admire him, 
the reason being that he satisfies the artistic instinct of the young- 
est and harmonises with the ripest and richest experience of the 
oldest. 

I have said this much to draw your attention to what, in my 
mind, lies at the root of all this matter, and at the understand- 
ing of one another by the men of science on the one hand, and the 
men of literature, and history, and art, on the other. It is not 
a question whether one order of study or another should pre- 
dominate. It is a question of what topics of education you shall 
select which will combine all the needful elements in such due 
proportion as to give the greatest amount of food, support, and 
encouragement to those faculties which enable us to appreciate 
truth, and to profit by those sources of innocent happiness which 
are open to us, and, at the same time, to avoid that which is 
bad, and coarse, and ugly, and keep clear of the multitude of 
pitfalls and dangers which beset those who break through the 
natural or moral laws. 

I address myself, in this spirit, to the consideration of the 
question of the value of purely literary education. Is it good and 
sufficient, or is it insufficient and bad? Well, here I venture to 
say that there are literary educations and literary educations. If 
I am to understand by that term the education that was cur- 
rent in the great majority of middle-class schools, and upper 
schools too, in this country when I was a boy, and which con- 
sisted absolutely and almost entirely in keeping boys for eight or 
ten years at learning the rules of Latin and Greek grammar, 
construing certain Latin and Greek authors, and possibly making 



SCIENCE AND ART IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 97 

verses which, had they been English verses, would have been con- 
demned as abominable doggerel, — if that is what you mean by 
liberal education, then I say it is scandalously insufficient and 
almost worthless. My reason for saying so is not from the point 
of view of science at all, but from the point of view of literature. 
I say the thing professes to be literary education that is not a 
literary education at all. It was not literature at all that was 
taught, but science in a very bad form. It is quite obvious that 
grammar is science and not literature. The analysis of a text by 
the help of the rules of grammar is just as much a scientific 
operation as the analysis of a chemical compound by the help of 
the rules of chemical analysis. There is nothing that appeals 
to the aesthetic faculty in that operation; and I ask multitudes 
of men of my own age, who went through this process, whether 
they ever had a conception of art or literature until they ob- 
tained it for themselves after leaving school? Then you may 
say, " If that is so, if the education was scientific, why cannot 
you be satisfied with it?" I say, because although it is a scientific 
training, it is of the most inadequate and inappropriate kind. If 
there is any good at all in scientific education it is that men 
should be trained, as I said before, to know things for themselves 
at first hand, and that they should understand every step of the 
reason of that which they do. 

I desire to speak with the utmost respect of that science — 
philology — of which grammar is a part and parcel; yet every- 
body knows that grammar, as it is usually learned at school, 
affords no scientific training. It is taught just as ybu" would 
teach the rules of chess or draughts. On the other hand, if I am 
to understand by a literary education the study of the literatures 
of either ancient or modern nations — but especially those of 
antiquity, and especially that of ancient Greece; if this literature 
is studied, not merely from the point of view of philological 
science, and its practical application to the interpretation of texts, 
but as an exemplification of and commentary upon the principles 
of art ; if you look upon the literature of a people as a chapter in 
the development of the human mind, if you work out this in a 
broad spirit, and with such collateral references to morals and 
politics, and physical geography, and the like as are needful to 
make you comprehend what the meaning of ancient literature and 
civilisation is, — then, assuredly, it affords a splendid and noble 
education. But I still think it is susceptible of improvement, 
and that no man will ever comprehend the real secret of the dif- 
ference between the ancient world and our present time, unless he 
has learned to see the difference which the late development of 



98 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

physical science has made between the thought of this day and the 
thought of that, and he will never see that difference, unless he 
has some practical insight into some branches of physical science ; 
and you must remember that a literary education such as that 
which I have just referred to, is out of the reach of those whose 
school life is cut short at sixteen or seventeen. 

But, you will say, all this is fault-finding; let us hear what 
you have in the way of positive suggestion. Then I am bound to 
tell you that, if I could make a clean sweep of everything — I 
am very glad I cannot because I might, and probably should, 
make mistakes, — but if I could make a clean sweep of everything 
and start afresh, I should, in the first place, secure that training 
of the young in reading and writing, and in the habit of atten- 
tion and observation, both to that which is told them, and that 
which they see, which everybody agrees to. But in addition to 
that, I should make it absolutely necessary for everybody, for a 
longer or shorter period, to learn to draw. Now, you may say, 
there are some people who cannot draw, however much they may 
be taught. I deny that in toto, because I never yet met with 
anybody who could not learn to write. Writing is a form of draw- 
ing; therefore if you give the same attention and trouble to 
drawing as you do to writing, depend upon it, there is nobody who 
cannot be made to draw, more or less well. Do not misappre- 
hend me. I do not say for one moment you would make an artistic 
draughtsman. Artists are not made; they grow. You may im- 
prove the natural faculty in that direction, but you cannot make 
it; but you can teach simple drawing, and you will find it an im- 
plement of learning of extreme value. I do not think its value 
can be exaggerated, because it gives you the means of training 
the young in attention and accuracy, which are the two things in 
which all mankind are more deficient than in any other mental 
quality whatever. The whole of my life has been spent in trying 
to give my proper attention to things and to be accurate, and I 
have not succeeded as well as I could wish; and other people, I 
am afraid, are not much more fortunate. You cannot begin this 
habit too early, and I consider there is nothing of so great a 
value as the habit of drawing, to secure those two desirable 
ends. 

Then we come to the subject-matter, whether scientific Or 
aesthetic, of education, and I should naturally have no question 
at all about teaching the elements of physical science of the kind 
I have sketched, in a practical manner; but among scientific 
topics, using the word scientific in the broadest sense, I would also 
include the elements of the theory of morals and of that of 



SCIENCE AND ART IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 99 

political and social life, which, strangely enough, it never seems 
to occur to anybody to teach a child. I would have the history 
of our own country, and of all the influences which have been 
brought to bear upon it, with incidental geography, not as a 
mere chronicle of reigns and battles, but as a chapter in the de- 
velopment of the race, and the history of civilisation. 

Then with respect to aesthetic knowledge and discipline, we 
have happily in the English language one of the most magnificent 
storehouses of artistic beauty and of models of literary excellence 
which exists in the world at the present time. I have said before, 
and I repeat it here, that if a man cannot get literary culture of 
the highest kind out of his Bible, and Chaucer, and Shakespeare, 
and Milton, and Hobbes, and Bishop Berkeley, to mention only 
a few of our illustrious writers — I say, if he cannot get it out 
of those writers, he cannot get it out of anything; and I would 
assuredly devote a very large portion of the time of every Eng- 
lish child to the careful study of the models of English writing 
of such varied and wonderful kind as we possess, and, what is 
still more important and still more neglected, the habit of using 
that language with precision, with force, and with art. I fancy 
we are almost the only nation in the world who seem to think 
that composition comes by nature. The French attend to their 
own language, the Germans study theirs; but Etiglishmen do not 
seem to think it is worth their while. Nor would I fail to in- 
clude, in the course of study I am sketching, translations of all 
the best works of antiquity, or of the modern world. It is a very 
desirable thing to read Homer in Greek; but if you don't happen 
to know Greek, the next best thing we can do is to read as good 
a translation of it as we have recently been furnished with in 
prose. You won't get all you would get from the original, but 
you may get a great deal; and to refuse to know this great deal 
because you cannot get all, seems to be as sensible as for a hungry 
man to refuse bread because he cannot get partridge. Finally, 
I would add instruction in either music or painting, or, if the 
child should be so unhappy, as sometimes happens, as to have no 
faculty for either of those, and no possibility of doing anything 
in any artistic sense with them, then I would see what could be 
done with literature alone; but I would provide, in the fullest 
sense, for the development of the aesthetic side of the mind. In 
my judgment, those are all the essentials of education for an 
English child. With that outfit, such as it might be made in the 
time given to education which is within the reach of nine-tenths 
of the population — with that outfit, an Englishman, within the 
limits of English life, is fitted to go anywhere, to occupy the 



100 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

highest positions, to fill the highest offices of the State, and to 
become distinguished in practical pursuits, in science, or in art. 
For, if he have the opportunity to learn all those things, and have 
his mind disciplined in the various directions the teaching of 
those topics would have necessitated, then, assuredly, he will be 
able to pick up, on his road through life, all the rest of the intel- 
lectual baggage he wants. 

If the educational time at our disposition were sufficient there 
are one or two things I would add to those I have just now called 
the essentials; and perhaps you will be surprised to hear, though 
I hope you will not, that I should add, not more science, but one, 
or, if possible, two languages. The knowledge of some other 
language than one's own is, in fact, of singular intellectual value. 
Many of the faults and mistakes of the ancient philosophers are 
traceable to the fact that they knew no language but their own, 
and were often led into confusing the symbol with the thought 
which it embodied. I think it is Locke who says that one-half of 
the mistakes of philosophers have arisen from questions about 
words ; and one of the safest ways of delivering yourself from the 
bondage of words is, to know how ideas look in words to which 
you are not accustomed. That is one reason for the study of 
language; another reason is, that it opens new fields in art and 
in science. Another is the practical value of such knowledge ; and 
yet another is this, that if your languages are properly chosen, 
from the time of learning the additional languages you will know 
your own language better than ever you did. So, I say, if the 
time given to education permits, add Latin and German. Latin, 
because it is the key to nearly one-half of English and to all the 
Romance languages; and German, because it is the key to almost 
all the reroiainder of English, and helps you to understand a race 
from whom most of us have sprung, and who have a character 
and a literature of a fateful force in the history of the world, 
such as probably has been allotted to those of no other people, 
except the Jews, the Greeks, and ourselves. Beyond these, the 
essential and the eminently desirable elements of all education, 
let each man take up his special line — the historian devote him- 
self to his history, the man of science to his science, the man of 
letters to his culture of that kind, and the artist to his special 
pursuit. 

Bacon has prefaced some of his works with no more than this : 
Franciscus Bacon sic cogitavit; let "sic cogitavi " be the epilogue 
to what I have ventured to address to you to-night. 



UNIVERSITIES ; ACTUAL AND IDEAL 101 



vin. 

UNIVEESITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL. 

ELECTED by the suffrages of your four Nations Rector of 
the ancient University of which you are scholars, I take 
the earliest opportunity which has presented itself since my 
restoration to health, of delivering the Address which, by long 
custom, is expected of the holder of my office. 

My first duty in opening that Address, is to offer you my most 
hearty thanks for the signal honour you have conferred upon me 
— an honour of which, as a man unconnected with you by per- 
sonal or by national ties, devoid of political distinction, and a 
plebeian who stands by his order, I could not have dreamed. 
And it was the more surprising to me, as the five-and-twenty 
years which have passed over my head since I reached intellec- 
tual manhood, have been largely spent in no half-hearted advocacy 
of doctrines which have not yet found favour in the eyes of 
Academic respectability; so that, when the proposal to nominate 
me for your Hector came, I was almost as much astonished as was 
Hal o' the Wynd, " who fought for his own hand," by the Black 
Douglas's proffer of knighthood. And I fear that my acceptance 
must be taken as evidence that, less wise than the Armourer of 
Perth, I have not yet done with soldiering. 

In fact, if, for a moment, I imagined that your intention was 
simply, in the kindness of your hearts, to do me honour; and that 
the rector of your University, like that of some other Universities, 
was one of those happy beings who sit in glory for three years, 
with nothing to do for it save the making of a speech, a conver- 
sation with my distinguished predecessor soon dispelled the dream. 
I found that, by the constitution of the University of Aberdeen, 
the incumbent of the Rectorate is, if not a power, at any rate a 
potential energy; and that, whatever may be his chances of suc- 
cess or failure, it is his duty to convert that potential energy into 
a living force, directed towards such ends as may seem to him 
conducive to the welfare of the corporation of which he is the 
theoretical head. 



102 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

I need not tell you that your late Lord Bector took this view 
of his position, and acted upon it with the comprehensive, far- 
seeing insight into the actual condition and tendencies, not mere- 
ly of his own, but of other countries, which is his honourable 
characteristic among statesmen. I have already done my best, 
and, as long as I hold my office, I shall continue my endeavours, 
to follow in the path which he trod; to do what in me lies, to 
bring this University nearer to the ideal — alas, that I should be 
obliged to say ideal — of all Universities; which, as I conceive, 
should be places in which thought is free from all fetters ; and in 
which all sources of knowledge, and all aids to learning, should 
be accessible to all comers, without distinction of creed or coun- 
try, riches or poverty. 

Do not suppose, however, that I am sanguine enough to expect 
much to come of any poor efforts of mine. If your annals take 
any notice of my incumbency, I shall probably gO' down to pos- 
terity as the Kector who was always beaten. But if they add, as 
I think they will, that my defeats became victories in the hands of 
my successors, I shall be well content. 

The scenes are shifting in the great theatre of the world. The 
act which commenced with the Protestant Reformation is nearly 
played out, and a wider and deeper change than that effected three 
centuries ago — a reformation, or rather a revolution of thought, 
the extremes of which are represented by the intellectual heirs of 
John of Leyden and of Ignatius Loyola, rather than by those of 
Luther and of Leo — is waiting to come on, nay, visible behind the 
scenes to those who have good eyes. Men are beginning, once 
more, to awake to the fact that matters of belief and of specula- 
tion are of absolutely infinite practical importance ; and are draw- 
ing off from that sunny country " where it is always afternoon " 
— the sleepy hollow of broad indifferentism — to range themselves 
under their natural banners. Change is in the air. It is whirling 
feather-heads into all sorts of eccentric orbits, and filling the 
steadiest with a sense of insecurity. It insists on reopening all 
questions and asking all institutions, however venerable, by what 
right they exist, and whether they are, or are not, in harmony 
with the real or supposed wants of mankind. And it is remark- 
able that these searching inquiries are not so much forced on 
institutions from without, as developed from within. Consum- 
mate scholars question the value of learning; priests contemn 
dogma; and women turn their backs upon man's ideal of perfect 
womanhood, and seek satisfaction in apocalyptic visions of some, 
as yet, unrealised epicene reality. 



UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL 103 

If there be a type of stability in this world, one would be in- 
clined to look for it in the old Universities of England. But it 
has been my business of late to hear a good deal about what is 
going on in these famous corporations; and I have been filled 
with astonishment by the evidences of internal fermentation which 
they exhibit. If Gibbon could revisit the ancient seat of learning 
of which he has written so cavalierly, assuredly he would no 
longer speak of " the monks of Oxford sunk in prejudice and 
port." There, as elsewhere, port has gone out of fashion, and so 
has prejudice — at least that particular fine, old, crusted sort of 
prejudice to which the great historian alludes. 

Indeed, things are moving so fast in Oxford and Cambridge, 
that, for my part, I rejoiced when the Royal Commission, of 
which I am a member, had finished and presented the Report 
which related to these Universities; for we should have looked 
like mere plagiarists, if, in consequence of a little longer delay in 
issuing it, all the measures of reform we proposed had been an- 
ticipated by the spontaneous action of the Universities them- 
selves. 

A month ago I should have gone on to say that one might 
speedily expect changes of another kind in Oxford and Cam- 
bridge. A Commission has been inquiring into the revenues 
of the many wealthy societies in more or less direct connection 
with the Universities, resident in those towns. It is said that the 
Commission has reported, and that, for the first time in recorded 
history, the nation, and perhaps the Colleges themselves, will 
know what they are worth. And it was announced that a states- 
man, who, whatever his other merits or defects, has aims above 
the level of mere party fighting, and a clear vision into the most 
complex practical problems, meant to deal with these revenues. 

But, Bos locutus est. That mysterious independent variable 
of political calculation. Public Opinion — which some whisper 
is, in the present case, very much the same thing as publican's 
opinion — has willed otherwise. The Heads may return to their 
wonted slumbers — at any rate for a space. 

Is the spirit of change, which is working thus vigorously in 
the South, likely to affect the Northern Universities, and if so, 
to what extent? The violence of fermentation depends, not so 
much on the quantity of the yeast, as on the composition of the 
wort, and its richness in fermentable material; and, as a prelim- 
inary to the discussion of this question, I venture to call to your 
minds the essential and fundamental differences between the 
Scottish and the English type of University. 

Do not charge me with anything worse than oificial egotism, if 



104 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

I say that these differences appear to be largely symbolised by my 
own existence. There is no Hector in an English University. 
Now, the organisation of the members of a University into Na- 
tions, with their elective Rector, is the last relic of the primitive 
constitution of Universities. The E-ectorate was the most im- 
portant of all offices in that University of Paris, upon the model 
of which the University of Aberdeen was fashioned; and which 
was certainly a great and flourishing institution in the twelfth 
century. 

Enthusiasts for the antiquity of one of the two acknowledged 
parents of all Universities, indeed, do not hesitate to trace the 
origin of the " Studium Parisiense " up to that wonderful king 
of the Franks and Lombards, Karl, surnamed the Great, whom 
we all called Charlemagne, and believed to be a Frenchman, until 
a learned historian, by beneficent iteration, taught us better. Karl 
is said not to have been much of a scholar himself, but he had the 
wisdom of which knowledge is only the servitor. And that wis- 
dom enabled him to see that ignorance is one of the roots of 
all evil. 

In the Capitulary which enjoins the foundation of monasterial 
and cathedral schools, he says : " Eight action is better than 
knowledge; but in order to do what is right, we must know what 
is right."* An irrefragable truth, I fancy. Acting upon it, the 
king took pretty full compulsory powers, and carried into effect 
a really considerable and effectual scheme of elementary education 
through the length and breadth of his dominions. 

No doubt the idolaters out by the Elbe, in what is now part of 
Prussia, objected to the Prankish king's measures; no doubt the 
priests, who had never hesitated about sacrificing all unbelievers 
in their fantastic deities and futile conjurations, were the loudest 
in chanting the virtues of toleration; no doubt they denounced as 
a cruel persecutor the man who would not allow them, however 
sincere they might be, to go on spreading delusions which debased 
the intellect, as much as they deadened the moral sense, and 
undermined the bonds of civil allegiance; no doubt, if they 
had lived in these times, they would have been able to show, 
with ease, that the king's proceedings were totally contrary to 
the best liberal principles. But it may be said, in justification 
of the Teutonic ruler, first, that he was born before those 
principles, and did not suspect that the best way of getting 
disorder into order was to let it alone; and, secondly, that his 

* " Quamvis enim melius sit bene facere quam nosse, priiis tamen est 
nosse quam facere." — " Karoli Magni Regis Constitutio de Scholis per 
singula Episcopia et Monasteria instituendis," addressed to the Abbot 
of Fulda. Baluzius, Captitularia Regum Francorum, T. i., p. 202. 



UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL 105 

rougli and questionable proceedings did, more or less, bring about 
the end he had in view. For, in a couple of centuries, the schools 
lie sowed broadcast produced their crop of men, thirsting for 
knowledge and craving for culture. Such men gravitating to- 
wards. Paris, as a light amidst the darkness of evil days, from 
Germany, from Spain, from Britain, and from Scandinavia, came 
together by natural affinity. By degrees they banded themselves 
into a society, which, as its end was the knowledge of all things 
knowable, called itself a " 8tudium Generale/^ and when it had 
grown into a recognised corporation, acquired the name of " Uni- 
versitas Studii Generalise which, mark you, means not a " Useful 
Knowledge Society," but a " Knowledge-of -things-in-general So- 
ciety." 

And thus the first " University," at any rate on this side of the 
Alps, came into being. Originally it had but one Faculty, that 
of Arts. Its aim was to be a centre of knowledge and culture ; not 
to be, in any sense, a technical school. 

The scholars seem to have studied Grammar, Logic, and Bhe- 
toric; Arithmetic and Geometry; Astronomy; Theology; and 
Music. Thus, their work, however imperfect and faulty, judged 
by modern lights, it may have been, brought them face to face 
with all the leading aspects of the many-sided mind of man. 
For these studies did really contain, at any rate in embyro — ■ 
sometimes, it may be, in caricature — what we now call Phi- 
losophy, Mathematical and Physical Science, and Art. And I 
doubt if the curriculum of any modern University shows so clear 
and generous a comprehension of what is meant by culture, as this 
old Trivium and Quadrivium does. 

The students who had passed through the University course, 
and had proved themselves competent to teach, became masters 
and teachers of their younger brethren. Whence the distinction 
of Masters and Regents on the one hand, and Scholars on the 
other. 

Rapid growth necessitated organisation. The Masters and 
Scholars of various tongues and countries grouped themselves into 
four Nations; and the Nations, by their own votes at first, and 
subsequently by those of their Procurators, or representatives, 
elected their supreme head and governor, the Rector — at that 
time the sole representative of the University, and a very real 
power, who could defy Provosts interfering from without ; or could 
inflict even corporal punishment on disobedient members within 
the University. 

Such was the primitive constitution of the University of Paris. 
It is in reference to this original state of things that I have 



106 SCil^XCE xlND EDUCATION 

spoken of the Eectorate, and all that appertains to it, as the sole 
relic of that constitution. 

But this original organisation did not last long. Society was 
not then, any more than it is now, patient of culture, as such. It 
says to everything, " Be useful to me, or away with you." And to 
the learned, the unlearned man said then, as he does now, "What 
is the use of all your learning, unless you can tell me what I want 
to know? I am here blindly groping about, and constantly dam- 
aging myself by collision with three mighty powers, the power of 
the invisible God, the power of my fellow Man, and the power of 
brute Nature. Let your learning be turned to the study of these 
powers, that I may know how I am to comport myself with regard 
to them." In answer to this demand, some of the Masters of the 
Faculty of Arts devoted themselves to the study of Theology, some 
to that of Law, and some to that of Medicine; and they became 
Doctors — men learned in those technical, or, as we now call them, 
professional, branches of knowledge. Like cleaving to like, the 
Doctors formed schools, or Faculties, of Theology, Law, and Medi- 
cine, which sometimes assumed airs of superiority over their 
parent, the Faculty of Arts, though the latter always asserted and 
maintained its fundamental supremacy. 

The Faculties arose by process of natural differentiation out 
of the primitive University. Other constituents, foreign to its 
nature, were speedily grafted upon it. One of these extraneous 
elements were forced into it by the Boman Church, which in those 
days asserted with effect, that which it now asserts, happily with- 
out any effect in these realms, its rights of censorship and con- 
trol over all teaching. The local habitation of the University lay 
partly in the lands attached to the monastery of S. Genevieve, 
partly in the diocese of the Bishop of Faris; and he who would 
teach must have the license of the Abbot, or of the Bishop, as the 
nearest representative of the Pope, so to do, which license was 
granted by the Chancellors of these Ecclesiastics. 

Thus, if I am what archaeologists call a " survival " of the 
primitive head and ruler of the University, your Chancellor stands 
in the same relation to the Papacy; and, with all respect for his 
Grace, I think I may say that we both look terribly shrunken when 
compared with our great originals. 

Not so is it with the second foreign element, which silently 
dropped into the soil of Universities, like the grain of mustard- 
seed in the parable ; and, like that grain, grew into a tree, in 
whose branches a whole aviary of fowls took shelter. That ele- 
ment is the element of Endowment. It differed from the pre- 
ceding, in its original design to serve as a prop to the young 
plant, not to be a parasite upon it. The charitable and the hu- 



UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL 107 

rnane, blessed with wealth, were very early penetrated by the 
misery of the poor student. And the wise saw that intellectual 
ability is not so common or sg unimportant a gift that it should 
be allowed to run to waste upon mere handicrafts and chares.* 
The man who was a blessing to his contemporaries, but who so 
often has been converted into a curse, by the blind adherence of 
his posterity to the letter, rather than to the spirit, of his wishes 
— I mean the " pious founder " — gave money and lands, that 
the student, who was rich in brain and poor in all else, might 
be taken from the plough or from the smithy, and enabled to devote 
himself to the higher service of mankind; and built colleges and 
halls in which he might be not only housed and fed, but taught. 

The Colleges were very generally placed in strict subordination 
to the University by their founders; but, in many cases, their 
endowment, consisting of land, has undergone an " unearned 
increment," which has given these societies a continually increas- 
ing weight and importance as against the unendowed, or fixedly 
endowed, University. In Pharaoh's dream, the seven lean kine 
eat up the seven fat ones. In the reality of historical fact, the fat 
Colleges have eaten up the lean Universities. 

Even here in Aberdeen, though the causes at work may have 
been somewhat different, the effects have been similar; and you 
see how much more substantial an entity is the Very Reverend the 
Principal, analogue, if not homologue, of the Principals of King's 
College, than the Rector, lineal representative of the ancient 
monarchs of the University, though now, little more than a " king 
of shreds and patches." 

Do not suppose that, in thus briefly tracing the process of Uni- 
versity metamorphosis, I have had any intention of quarrelling 
with its results. Practically, it seems to me that the broad 
changes effected in 1858 have given the Scottish Universities a 
very liberal constitution, with as much real approximation to the 
primitive state of things as is at all desirable. If your fat kine 
have eaten the lean, they have not lain down to chew the cud ever 
since. The Scottish Universities, like the English, have diverged 
widely enough from their primitive model; but I cannot help 
thinking that the northern form has remained more faithful to its 
original, not only in constitution, but, what is more to the pur- 
pose, in view of the cry for change, in the practical application 
of the endowments connected with it. 

In Aberdeen, these endowments are numerous, but so small 
that, taken altogether, they are not equal to the revenue of a 
single third-rate English college. They are scholarships, not fel- 

* Old English for " chores." 



108 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

lowships; aids to do work — not rewards for such work as it lies 
within the reach of an ordinary, or even an extraordinary, young 
man to do. You do not think that passing a respectable examina- 
tion is a fair equivalent for an income, such as many a grey- 
headed veteran, or clergyman would envy; and which is larger 
than the endowment of many Regius chairs. You do not care to 
make your University a school of manners for the rich; of sports 
for the athletic; or a hot-bed of high-fed, hypercritical refinement, 
more destructive to vigour and originality than are starvation 
and oppression. No; your little Bursaries of ten and twenty (I 
believe even fifty) pounds a year, enabled any boy who has 
shown ability in the course of his education in those remarkable 
primary schools, which have made Scotland the power she is, to 
obtain the highest culture the country can give him; and when 
he is armed and equipped, his Spartan Alma Mater tells him 
that, so far, he has had his wages for his work, and that he 
may go and earn the rest. 

When I think of the host of pleasant, moneyed, well-bred young 
gentlemen, who do a little learning and much boating by Cam 
and Isis, the vision is a pleasant one; and, as a patriot, I rejoice 
that the youth of the upper and richer classes of the nation re- 
ceive a wholesome and a manly training, however small may be the 
modicum of knowledge they gather, in the intervals of this, their 
serious business. I admit, to the full, the social and political 
value of that training. But, when I proceed to consider that 
these young men may be said to represent the great bulk of what 
the Colleges have to show for their enormous wealth, plus, at 
least, a hundred and fifty pounds a year apiece which each under- 
graduate costs his parents or guardians, I feel inclined to ask, 
whether the rate-in-aid of the education of the wealthy and pro- 
fessional classes, thus levied on the resources of the community, 
is not, after all, a little heavy? And, still further, I am tempted 
to inquire what has become of the indigent scholars, the sons of 
the masses of the people whose daily labour just suffices to meet 
their daily wants, for whose benefit these rich foundations were 
largely, if not mainly, instituted ? It seems as if Pharaoh's dream 
had been rigorously carried out, and that even the fat scholar 
has eaten the lean one. And when I turn from this picture to 
the no less real vision of many a brave and frugal Scotch boy, 
spending his summer in hard manual labour, that he may have 
the privilege of wending his way in autumn to this University, 
with a bag of oatmeal, ten pounds in his pocket, and his own stout 
heart to depend upon through the northern winter; not bent on 
seeking 

" The bubble reputation at the cannon's mouth," 



UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL 109 

but determined to wring knowledge fromi the hard hands of 
penury; when I see him win through all such outward obstacles 
to positions of wide usefulness and well-earned fame; I cannot 
but think that, in essence, Aberdeen has departed but little from 
the primitive intention of the founders of Universities, and that 
the spirit of reform has so much to do on the other side of the 
Border, that it may be long before he has leisure to look this way. 

As compared with other actual Universities, then, Aberdeen, 
may, perhaps, be well satisfied with itself. But do not think me 
an impracticable dreamer, if I ask you not to rest and be thank- 
ful in this state of satisfaction; if I ask you to consider awhile, 
how this actual good stands related to that ideal better, towards 
which both men and institutions must progress, if they would not 
retrograde. 

In an ideal University, as I conceive it, a man should be able 
to obtain instruction in all forms of knowledge and discipline in 
the use of all the methods by which knowledge is obtained. In 
such a University, the force of living example should fire the stu- 
dent with a noble ambition to emulate the learning of learned 
men, and to follow in the footsteps of the explorers of new fields 
of knowledge. And the very air he breathes should be charged 
with that enthusiasm for truth, that fanaticism of veracity, which 
is a greater possession than much learning; a nobler gift than 
the power of increasing knowledge; by so much greater and 
nobler than these, as the moral nature of man is greater than 
the intellectual; for veracity is the heart of morality. 

But the man who is all morality and intellect, although he may 
be good and even great, is, after all, only half a man. There is 
beauty in the moral world and in the intellectual world ; but there 
is also a beauty which is neither moral nor intellectual — the 
beauty of the world of Art. There are men who are devoid of 
the power of seeing it, as there are men who are born deaf and 
blind, and the loss of those, as of these, is simply infinite. There 
are others in whom it is an overpowering passion; happy men, 
born with the productive, or at lowest, the appreciative, genius of 
the Artist. But, in the mass of mankind, the Esthetic faculty, 
like the reasoning power and the moral sense, needs to be roused, 
directed, and cultivated; and I know not why the development of 
that side of his nature, through which man has access to a peren- 
nial spring of ennobling pleasure, should be omitted from any 
comprehensive scheme of University education. 

All Universities recognise Literature in the sense of the old 
Rhetoric, which is art incarnate in words. Some, to their credit. 



110 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

recognize Art in its narrower sense, to a certain extent, and con- 
fer degrees for proficiency in some of its branches. If there are 
Doctors of Music, why should there be no Masters of painting, 
of Sculpture, of Architecture? I should like to see Professors of 
the Fine Arts in every University ; and instruction in some branch 
of their work made a part of the Arts curriculum. 

I just now expressed the opinion that, in our ideal University, a 
man should be able to obtain instruction in all forms of knowl- 
edge. Now, by " forms of knowledge," I mean the great classes of 
things knowable; of which the first, in logical, though not in 
natural, order is knowledge relating to the scope and limits of the 
mental faculties of man, a form of knowledge which, in its posi- 
tive aspect, answers pretty much to Logic and part of Psychology, 
while, on its negative and critical side, it corresponds with Meta- 
physics. 

A second class comprehends all that knowledge which relates 
to man's welfare, so far as it is determined by his own acts, or 
what we call his conduct. It answers to Moral and Religious 
philosophy. Practically, it is the most directly valuable of all 
forms of knowledge, but speculatively, it is limited and criticised 
by that which precedes and by that which follows it in my order of 
enumeration. 

A third class embraces knowledge of the phsenomena of the 
Universe, as that which lies about the individual man; and of the 
rules which those phsenomena are observed to follow in the order 
of their occurrence, which we term the laws of Nature. 

That is what ought to be called Natural Science, or Physiology, 
though those terms are hopelessly diverted from such a meaning; 
and it includes all exact knowledge of natural fact, whether 
Mathematical, Physical, Biological, or Social. 

Kant has said that the ultimate object of all knowledge is to 
give replies to these three questions: What can I do? What 
ought I to do? What may I hope for? The forms of knowledge 
which I have enumerated, should furnish such replies as are with- 
in human reach, to the first and second of these questions. While 
to the third, perhaps the wisest answer is, " Do what you can to 
do what you ought, and leave hoping and fearing alone." 

If this be a just and an exhaustive classification of the forms 
of knowledge, no question as to their relative importance, or as to 
their superiority of one to the other, can be seriously raised. 

On the face of the matter, it is absurd to ask whether it is more 
important to know the limits of one's powers; or the ends for 
which they ought to be exerted; or the conditions under which 
they must be exerted. One may as well inquire which of the 



UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL 111 

terms of a Rule of Three sum one ouglit to know, in order to get 
a trustworthy result. Practical life is such a sum, in which 
your duty multiplies into your capacity, and divided by your cir- 
cum.stances, gives you the fourth term in the proportion, which is 
your deserts, with great accuracy. All agree, I take it, that men 
ought to have these three kinds of knowledge. The so-called 
" conflict of studies " turns upon the question of how they maj 
be best obtained. 

The founders of Universities held the theory that the Scriptures 
and Aristotle taken together, the latter being limited by the 
former, contained all knowledge worth having, and that the busi- 
ness of philosophy was to interpret and co-ordinate these two. I 
imagine that in the twelfth century this was a very fair conclusion 
from known facts. Nowhere in the world, in those days, was 
there such an encyclopaedia of knowledge of all three classes, as is 
to be found in those writings. The scholastic philosophy is a 
wonderful monument of the patience and ingenuity with which the 
human mind toiled to build up a logically consistent theory of 
the Universe, out of such materials. And that philosophy is by 
no means dead and buried, as many vainly suppose. On the 
contrary, numbers of men of no mean learning and accomplish- 
ment, and sometimes of rare power and subtlety of thought, hold 
by it as the best theory of things which has yet been stated. 
And, what is still more remarkable, men who speak the language 
of modern philosophy, nevertheless think the thoughts of the 
schoolmen. " The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are 
the hands of Esau.'' Every day I hear " Cause," " Law," " Eorce," 
^' Vitality," spoken of as entities, by people who can enjoy Swift's 
joke about the meat-roasting quality of the smoke-jack, and com- 
fort themselves with the reflection that they are not even as those 
benighted schoolmen. 

Well, this great system had its day, and then it was sapped and 
mined by two influences. The first was the study of classical 
literature, which familiarised men with methods of philosophis- 
ing ; with conceptions of the highest Good ; with ideas of the order 
of Nature; with notions of Literary and Historical Criticism; 
and, above all, with visions of Art, of a kind which not only would 
not fit into the scholastic scheme, but showed them a pre-Chris- 
tian, and indeed altogether un-Christian world, of such grandeur 
and beauty that they ceased to think of any other. They were as 
men who had kissed the Eairy Queen, and wandering with her in 
the dim loveliness of the under-world, cared not to return to the 
familiar ways of home and fatherland, though they lay, at arm's 
length, overhead. Cardinals were more familiar with Virgil than 



112 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

with IsaiaK; and Popes laboured, witli great success, to re-paganise 
Kome. 

The second influence was the slow, but sure, growth of the 
physical sciences. It was discovered that some results of specula- 
tive thought, of immense practical and theoretical importance, 
can be verified by observation; and are always true, however 
severely they may be tested. Here, at any rate, was knowledge, 
to the certainty of which no authority could add, or take away, 
one jot or tittle, and to which the tradition of a thousand years 
was as insignificant as the hearsay of yesterday. To the scholastic 
system, the study of classical literature might be inconvenient 
and distracting, but it was possible to hope that it could be kept 
within bounds. Physical science, on the other hand, was an irrec- 
oncilable enemy, to be excluded at all hazards. The College of 
Cardinals has not distinguished itself in Physics or Physiology; 
and no Pope has, as yet, set up public laboratories in the Vatican. 

People do not always formulate the beliefs on which they act. 
The instinct of fear and dislike is quicker than the reasoning 
process ; and I suspect that, taken in conjunction with some other 
causes, such instinctive aversion is at the bottom of the long 
exclusion of any serious discipline in the physical sciences from 
the general curriculum of Universities; while, on the other hand, 
classical literature has been gradually made the backbone of the 
Arts course. 

I am ashamed to repeat here what I have said elsewhere, in sea- 
son and out of season, respecting the value of Science as knowl- 
edge and discipline. But the other day I met with some pas- 
sages in the Address to another Scottish University, of a great 
thinker, recently lost to us, which express so fully, and yet so 
tersely, the truth in this matter that I am fain to quote them : — 

" To question all things ; — never to turn away from any diffi- 
culty; to accept no doctrine either from ourselves or from other 
people without a rigid scrutiny by negative criticism; letting no 
fallacy, or incoherence, or confusion of thought, step by unper- 
ceived; above all, to insist upon having the meaning of a word 
clearly understood before using it, and the meaning of a proposi- 
tion before assenting to it ; — these are the lessons we learn " 
from workers in Science. " With all this vigorous management 
of the negative element, they inspire no scepticism about the 
reality of truth or indifference to its pursuit. The noblest en- 
thusiasm, both for the search after truth and for applying it tO' its 
highest uses, pervades those writers." " In cultivating, theref ore,'' 
science as an essential ingredient in education, " we are all the 



UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL 113 

wliile laying an admirable foundation for ethical and philosopK- 
ical culture."* 

The passages I have quoted were uttered by John Stuart Mill; 
but you cannot hear inverted commas, and it is therefore right 
that I should add, without delay, that I have taken the liberty of 
substituting " workers in science " for " ancient dialecticians," 
and " Science as an essential ingredient in education " for " the 
ancient languages as oUr best literary education." Mill did, in 
fact, deliver a noble panegyric upon classical studies. I do not 
doubt its justice, nor presume to question its wisdom. But I 
venture to maintain that no wise or just judge, who has a knowl- 
edge of the facts, will hesitate to say that it applies with equal 
force to scientific training. 

But it is only fair to the Scottish Universities to point out that 
they have long understood the value of Science as a branch of 
general education. I observe, with the greatest satisfaction, that 
candidates for the degree of Master of Arts in this University are 
required to have a knowledge, not only of Mental and Moral 
Philosophy, and of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, but of 
Natural History, in addition to the ordinary Latin and Greek 
course; and that a candidate may take honours in these subjects 
and in Chemistry. 

I do not know what the requirements of your examiners may 
be, but I sincerely trust that they are not satisfied with a mere 
book knowledge of these matters. For my own part I would not 
raise a finger, if I could thereby introduce mere book work in 
science into every Arts curriculum in the country. Let those 
who want to study books devote themselves to Literature, in which 
we have the perfection of books, both as to substance and as to 
form. If I may paraphrase Hobbes's well-known aphorism, I 
would say that " books are the money of Literature, but only the 
counters of Science," Science (in the sense in which I now use 
the term) being the knowledge of fact, of which every verbal 
description is but an incomplete and symbolic expression. And 
be assured that no teaching of science is worth anything, as a 
mental discipline, which is not based upon direct perception of 
the facts, and practical exercise of the observing and logical 
faculties upon them. Even in such a simple matter as the mere 
comprehension of form, ask the most practised and widely in- 
formed anatomist what is the difference between his knowledge 
of a structure which he has read about, and his knowledge of the 
same structure when he has seen it for himself; and he will tell 

* Inaugural Address delivered to the University of St. Andrew, by J. S. 
Mill, Rector of the University (pp. 32, 33), 



114 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

you that the two things are not comparable — the difference is 
infinite. Thus I am very strongly inclined to agree with some 
learned schoolmasters who say that, in their experience, the teach- 
ing of science is all waste time. As they teach it, I have no doubt 
it is. But to teach it otherwise requires an amount of personal 
labour and a development of means and appliances, which must 
strike horror and dismay into a man accustomed to mere book 
work; and who has been in the habit of teaching a class of fifty 
without much strain upon his energies. And this is one of the 
real difficulties in the way of the introduction of physical science 
into the ordinary University course, to which I have alluded. It 
is a difficulty which will not be overcome, until years of patient 
study have organised scientific teaching as well as, or I hope better 
than, classical teaching has been organised hitherto. 

A little while ago, I ventured to hint a doubt as to the perfec- 
tion of some of the arrangements in the ancient Universities of 
England; but, in their provision for giving instruction in Science 
as such, and without direct reference to any of its practical ap- 
plications, they have set a brilliant example. Within the last 
twenty years, Oxford alone has sunk more than a hundred and 
twenty thousand pounds in building and furnishing Physical, 
Chemical, and Physiological Laboratories, and a magnificent Mu- 
seum, arranged with an almost luxurious regard for the needs of 
the student. Cambridge, less rich, but aided by the munificence 
of her Chancellor, is taking the same course; and in a few years, 
it will be for no lack of the means and appliances of sound teach- 
ing, if the mass of English University men remain in their present 
state of barbarous ignorance of even the rudiments of scientific 
culture. 

Yet another step needs to be made before Science can be said 
to have taken its proper place in the Universities. That is its 
recognition as a Faculty, or branch of study demanding recogni- 
tion and special organisation, on account of its bearing on the 
wants of mankind. The faculties of Theology, Law, and Medi- 
cine, are technical schools, intended to equip men who have re- 
ceived general culture, with the special knowledge which is needed 
for the proper performance of the duties of clergymen, lawyers, 
and medical practitioners. 

When the material well-being of the country depended upon 
rude pasture and agriculture, and still ruder mining; in the days 
when all the innumerable applications of the principles of physical 
science to practical purposes were non-existent even as dreams; 
days which men living may have heard their fathers speak of; 
what little physical science could be seen to bear directly upon 



UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL 115 

human life, lay within the province of Medicine. Medicine was 
the foster-mother of Chemistry, because it has to do with the 
preparation of drugs and the detection of poisons; of Botany, 
because it enabled the physician to recognise medicinal herbs; of 
Comparative Anatomy and Physiology, because the man who 
studied Human Anatomy and Physiology for purely medical pur- 
poses was led to extend his studies to the rest of the animal world. 

Within my recollection, the only way in which a student could 
obtain anything like a training in Physical Science, was by at- 
tending the lectures of the Professors of Physical and N'atural 
Science attached to the Medical Schools. But, in the course of 
the last thirty years, both foster-mother and child have grown so 
big, that they threaten not only to crush one another, but to press 
the very life out of the unhappy student who enters the nursery; 
to the great detriment of all three. 

I speak in the presence of those who know practically what 
medical education is ; for I may assume that a large proportion of 
my hearers are more or less advanced students of medicine. I 
appeal to the most industrious and conscientious among you, to 
those who are most deeply penetrated with a sense of the extreme- 
ly serious responsibilities which attach to the calling of a medical 
practitioner, when I ask whether, out of the four years which 
you devote to your studies, you ought to spare even so much as an 
hour for any work which does not tend directly to fit you for 
your duties? 

Consider what that work is. Its foundation is a sound and 
practical acquaintance with the structure of the human organism, 
and with the modes and conditions of its action in health. I say 
a sound and practical acquaintance, to guard against the supposi- 
tion that my intention is to suggest that you ought all to be 
minute anatomists and accomplished physiologists. The devotion 
of your whole four years to Anatomy and Physiology alone, would 
be totally insufficient to attain that end. What I mean is, the 
sort of practical, familiar, finger-end knowledge which a watch- 
maker has of a watch, and which you expect that craftsman, as 
an honest man, to have, when you entrust a watch that goes badly, 
to him. It is a kind of knowledge which is to be acquired, not in 
the lecture-room, nor in the library, but in the dissecting-room and 
the laboratory. It is to be had not by sharing your attention be- 
tween these and sundry other subjects, but by concentrating your 
minds, week after week, and month after month, six or seven 
hours a day, upon all the complexities of organ and function, 
until each of the greater truths of anatomy and physiology has 
become an organic part of your minds — until you would know 



116 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

them if you were roused and questioned in the middle of the night, 
as a man knows the geography of his native place and the daily 
life of his home. That is the sort of knowledge which, once ob- 
tained, is a life-long possession. Other occupations may fill your 
minds — it may grow dim, and seem to be forgotten — but there 
it is, like the inscription on a battered and defaced coin, which 
comes out when you warm it. 

If I had the power to remodel Medical Education, the first 
two years of the medical curriculum should be devoted to nothing 
but such thorough study of Anatomy and Physiology, with Physio- 
logical Chemistry and Physics; the student should then pass a 
real, practical examination in these subjects; and, having gone 
through the ordeal satisfactorily, he should be troubled no more 
with them. His whole mind should then be given with equal 
intentness to Therapeutics, in its broadest sense, to Practical 
Medicine and to Surgery, with instruction in Hygiene and in 
Medical Jurisprudence; and of these subjects only — surely there 
are enough of them — should he be required to show a knowledge 
in his final examination. 

I cannot claim any special property in this theory of what the 
medical curriculum should be, for I find that views, more or less 
closely approximating these, are held by all who have seriously 
considered the very grave and pressing question of Medical Pe- 
form; and have, indeed, been carried into practice, to some extent, 
by the most enlightened Examining Boards. I have heard but 
two kinds of objections to them. There is first, the objection of 
vested interests, which I will not deal with here, because I want to 
make myself as pleasant as I can, and no discussions are so 
unpleasant as those which turn on such points. And there is, 
secondly, the much more respectable objection, which takes the 
general form of the reproach that, in thus limiting the curriculum, 
we are seeking to narrow it. We are told that the medical man 
ought to be a person of good education and general information, 
if his profession is to hold its own among other professions; that 
he ought to know Botany, or else, if he goes abroad, he will not 
be able to tell poisonous fruits from edible ones; that he ought 
to know drugs, as a druggist knows them, or he will not be able to 
tell sham bark and senna from the real articles; that he ought 
to know Zoology, because — well, I really have never been able 
to learn exactly why he is to be expected to know zoology. There 
is, indeed, a popular superstition, that doctors know all about 
things that are queer or nasty to the general mind, and may, 
therefore, be reasonably expected to know the " barbarous binomi- 
als " applicable to snakes, snails, and slugs; an anjount of infer- 



UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL 117 

mation with which the general mind is usually completely satis- 
fied. And there is a scientific superstition that Physiology is 
largely aided by Comparative Anatomy — a superstition which, 
like most superstitions, once had a grain of truth at bottom; but 
the grain has become homoeopathic, since Physiology took its 
modern experimental development, and became what it is now, the 
application of the principles of Physics and Chemistry to the 
elucidation of the phsenomena of life. 

I hold as strongly as any one can do, that the medical practi- 
tioner ought to be a person of education and good general culture ; 
but I also hold by the old theory of a Faculty, that a man should 
have his general culture before he devotes himself to the special 
studies of that Faculty; and I venture to maintain, that, if the 
general culture obtained in the Faculty of Arts were what it 
ought to be, the student would have quite as much knowledge of the 
fundamental principles of Physics, of Chemistry, and of Biology, 
as he needs, before he commenced his special medical studies. 

Moreover, I would urge, that a thorough study of Human Phys- 
iology is, in itself, an education broader and more comprehensive 
than much tha-t passes under that name. There is no side of the 
intellect which it does not call into play, no region of human 
knowledge into which either its roots, or its branches, do not 
extend; like the Atlantic befween the Old and the New Worlds, 
its waves wash the shores of the two worlds of matter and of 
mind; its tributary streams fiow from both; through its waters, 
as yet unfurrowed by the keel of any Columbus, lies the road, 
if such there be, from the one to the other; far away from that 
North-west Passage of mere speculation, in which so many brave 
souls have been hopelessly frozen up. 

But whether I am right or wrong about all this, the patent 
fact of the limitation of time remains. As the song runs : — 

" If a man could be sure 
That his life would endure 
For the space of a thousand long years " 



he might do a number of things not practicable under present 
conditions. Methuselah might, with much propriety, have taken 
half a century to get his doctor's degree; and might, very fairly, 
have been required to pass a practical examination upon the con- 
tents of the British Museum, before commencing practice as a 
promising young fellow of two hundred, or thereabouts. But you 
have four years to do your work in, and are turned loose, to save 
or slay, at two or three and twenty. 



lis SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

Now, I put it to you, whether you think that, when you come 
down to the realities of life — when you stand by the sick-bed, 
racking your brains for the principles which shall furnish you 
with the means of interpreting symptoms, and forming a rational 
theory of the condition of your patient, it will be satisfactory 
for you to find that those principles are not there — although, to 
use the examination slang which is unfortunately too familiar to 
me, you can quite easily " give an account of the leading peculiari- 
ties of the Marsupialia/' or " enumerate the chief characters of 
the Compositce," or " state the class and order of the animal from 
which Castoreum is obtained." 

I really do not think that state of things will be satisfactory 
to you ; I am very sure it will not be so to your* patient. Indeed, 
I am so narrow-minded myself, that if I had to choose between 
two physicians — one who did not know whether a whale is a fish or 
not, and could not tell gentian from ginger, but did understand 
the applications of the institutes of medicine to his art; while 
the other, like Talleyrand's doctor, " knew everything, even a little 
physic" — with all my love for breadth of culture, I should as- 
suredly consult the former. 

It is not pleasant to incur the suspicion of an inclination to 
injure or depreciate particular branches of knowledge, but the fact 
that one of those which I should have no hesitation in excluding 
from the medical curriculum, is that to which my own life has been 
specially devoted, should, at any rate, defend me from the suspicion 
of being urged to this course by any but the very gravest con- 
siderations of the public welfare. 

And I should like, further, to call your attention to the im- 
portant circumstance that, in thus proposing the exclusion of the 
study of such branches of knowledge as Zoology and Botany, from 
those compulsory upon the medical student, I am not, for a 
moment, suggesting their exclusion from the University. I think 
that sound and practical instruction in the elementary facts and 
broad principles of Biology should form part of the Arts Cur- 
riculum: and here, happily, my theory is in entire accordance 
with your practice. Moreover, as I have already said, I have no 
sort of doubt that, in view of the relation of Physical Science 
to the practical life of the present day, it has the same right as 
Theology, Law, and Medicine, to a Faculty of its own in which 
men shall be trained to be professional men of science. It may 
be doubted whether Universities are the places for technical 
schools of Engineering or applied Chemistry, or Agriculture. But 
there can surely be little question, that instruction in the branches 
of Science which lie at the foundation of these Arts, of a 



UNIVERSITIES: ACTUAL AND IDEAL 11^ 

far more advanced and special character than could, with any 
propriety, be included in the ordinary Arts Curriculum, ought to 
be obtainable by means of a duly organised Faculty of Science 
in every University. 

The establishment of such a Faculty would have the additional 
advantage of providing, in some measure, for one of the greatest 
wants of our time and country. I mean the proper support and 
encouragement of original research. 

The other day, an emphatic friend of mine committed himself 
to the opinion that, in England, it is better for a man's worldly 
prospects to be a drunkard, than to be smitten with the divine 
dipsomania of the original investigator. I am inclined to think 
he was not far wrong. And, be it observed, that the question is 
not, whether such a man shall be able to make as much out of 
his abilities as his brother, of like ability, who goes into Law, 
or Engineering, or Commerce ; it is not a question of " maintain- 
ing a due number of saddle horses," as George Eliot somewhere 
puts it — it is a question of living or starving. 

If a student of my own subject shows power and originality, 
I dare not advise him to adopt a scientific career ; for, supposing he 
is able to maintain himself until he has attained distinction, I 
cannot give him the assurance that any amount of proficiency in 
the Biological Sciences will be convertible into, even the most 
modest, bread and cheese. And I believe that the case is as bad, 
or perhaps worse, with other branches of Science. In this respect 
Britain, whose immense wealth and prosperity hang upon the 
thread of Applied Science, is far behind France, and infinitely be- 
hind Germany. 

And the worst of it is, that it is very difficult to see one's way 
to any immediate remedy for this state of affairs which shall be 
free from a tendency to become worse than the disease. 

Great schemes for the Endowment of Research have been pro- 
posed. It has been suggested, that Laboratories for all branches 
of Physical Science, provided with every apparatus needed by the 
investigator, shall be established by the State: and shall be ac- 
cessible, under due conditions and regulations, to all properly 
qualified persons. I see no objection to the principle of such 
a proposal. If it be legitimate to spend great sums of money on 
public Libraries and public collections of Painting and Sculpture, 
in aid of the Man of Letters, or the Artist, or for the mere sake of 
affording pleasure to the general public, I apprehend that it can- 
not be illegitimate to do as much for the promotion of scientific 
investigation. To take the lowest ground, as a mere investment 
of money, the latter is likely to be much more immediately profit- 



120 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

able. To my mind, the difficulty in the way of such schemes is not 
theoretical, but practical. Given the laboratories, how are the 
investigators to be maintained? What career is open to those 
who have been thus encouraged to leave bread- winning pursuits? 
If they are to be provided for by endowment, we come back to the 
College Fellowship system, the results of which, for Literature, 
have not been so brilliant that one would wish to see it extended to 
Science; unless some much better securities than at present exist 
can be taken that it will foster real work. You know that among 
the Bees, it depends on the kind of cell in which the egg is de- 
posited, and the quantity and quality of food which is supplied 
to the grub, whether it shall turn out a busy little worker or 
a big idle queen. And, in the human hive, the cells of the en- 
dowed larvae are always tending to enlarge, and their food to 
improve, until we get queens, beautiful to behold, but which gather 
no honey and build no comb. 

I do not say that these difficulties may not be overcome, but 
their gravity is not to be lightly estimated. 

In the meanwhile, there is one step in the direction of the 
endowment of research which is free from such objections. It 
is possible to place the scientific enquirer in a position in which 
he shall have ample leisure and opportunity for original work, 
and yet shall give a fair and tangible equivalent for those privi-^ 
leges. The establishment of a Faculty of Science in every Uni- 
versity, implies that of a corresponding number of Professorial 
chairs, the incumbents of which need not be so burdened with 
teaching as to deprive them of ample leisure for original work. 
I do not think that it is any impediment to an original investiga- 
tor to have to devote a moderate portion of his time to lecturing, 
or superintending practical instruction. On the contrary, I think 
it may be, and often is, a benefit to be obliged to take a com- 
prehensive survey of your subject; or to bring your results to 
a point, and give them, as it were, a tangible objective existence. 
The besetting sins of the investigator are two : the one is the de- 
sire to put aside a subject, the general bearings of which he has 
mastered himself, and pass on to something which has the attrac- 
tion of novelty; and the other, the desire for too much perfection, 
which leads him to 



" Add and alter many times, 
Till all be ripe and rotten ; " 



to spend the energies which should be reserved for action in 
whitening the decks and polishing the guns. 

The obligation to produce results for the instruction of others. 



UNIVEHSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL 121 

seems to me to be a more effectual cKeck^ on these tendencies 
than even the love of usefulness or the ambition for fame. 

But supposing the Professorial forces of our University to be 
duly organised, there remains an important question, relating to 
the teaching power, to be considered. Is the Professorial sys- 
tem — the system, I mean, of teaching in the lecture-room alone, 
and leaving the student to find his own way when he is outside 
the lecture-room — adequate to the wants of learners ? In an- 
swering this question, I confine myself to my own province, and I 
venture to reply for Physical Science, assuredly and undoubtedly. 
No. As I have already intimated, practical work in the Labora- 
tory is absolutely indispensable, and that practical work must 
be guided and superintended by a sufficient staff of Demon- 
strators, who are for Science what Tutors are for other branches 
of study. And there must be a good supply of such Demonstra- 
tors. I doubt if the practical work of more than twenty students 
can be properly superintended by one Demonstrator. If we take 
the working day at six hours, that is less than twenty minutes 
apiece — not a very large allowance of time for helping a dull 
man, for correcting an inaccurate one, or even for making an 
intelligent student clearly apprehend what he is about. And, 
no doubt, the supplying of a proper amount of this tutorial, prac- 
tical teaching, is a difficulty in the way of giving proper instruc- 
tion in Physical Science in such Universities as that of Aberdeen, 
which are devoid of endowments; and, unlike the English Uni- 
versities, have no moral claim on the funds of richly endowed 
bodies to supply their wants. 

Examination — thorough, searching examination — is an indis- 
pensable accompaniment of teaching; but I am. almost inclined to 
commit myself to the very heterodox proposition that it is a neces- 
sary evil. I am a very old Examiner, having, for some twenty 
years past, been occupied with examinations on a considerable 
scale, of all sorts and conditions of men, and women too, — from 
the boys and girls of elementary schools to the candidates for 
Honours and Eellowships in the Universities. I will not say that, 
in this case as in so many others, the adage, that familiarity 
breeds contempt, holds good; but my admiration for the existing 
system of examination and its products, does not wax warmer 
as I see more of it. Examination, like fire, is a good servant, 
but a bad master; and there seems to me to be some danger of 
its becoming our master. I by no means stand alone in this 
opinion. Experienced friends of mine do not hesitate to say that 
students whose careers they watch, appear to them to become de- 
teriorated by the constant effort to pass this or that examination, 



122 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

just as we hear of men's brains becoming affected by the daily 
necessity of catching a train. They work to pass, not to know; 
and outraged Science takes her revenge. They do pass, and they 
don't know. I have passed sundry examinations in my time, not 
without credit, and I confess I am ashamed to think how very lit- 
tle real knowledge underlay the torrent of stuff which I was 
able to pour out on paper. In fact, that which examination, as 
ordinarily conducted, tests, is simply a man's power of work 
under stimulus, and his capacity for rapidly and clearly pro- 
ducing that which, for the time, he has got into his mind. Now, 
these faculties are by no means to be despised. They are of great 
value in practical life, and are the making of many an advocate, 
and of many a so-called statesman. But in the pursuit of truth, 
scientific or other, they count for very little, unless they are sup- 
plemented by that long-continued, patient " intending of the 
mind," as Newton phrased it, which makes very little show in 
Examinations. I imagine that an Examiner who knows his stud- 
ents personally, must not unfrequently have found himself in the 
position of finding A's paper better than B's, though his own 
judgment tells him, quite clearly, that B is the man who has the 
larger share of genuine capacity. 

Again, there is a fallacy about Examiners. It is commonly 
supposed that any one who knows a subject is competent to teach 
it; and no one seems to doubt that any one who knows a subject 
is competent to examine in it. I believe both these opinions to 
be serious mistakes : the latter, perhaps, the more serious of the 
two. In the first place, I do not believe that any one who is not, 
or has not been, a teacher is really qualified to examine advanced 
students. And in the second place. Examination is an Art, and 
a difficult one, which has to be learned like all other arts. 

Beginners always set too difficult questions — partly because 
they are afraid of being suspected of ignorance if they set easy 
ones, and partly from not understanding their business. Sup- 
pose that you want to test the relative physical strength of a 
score of young men. You do not put a hundredweight down be- 
fore them, and tell each to swing it round. If you do, half of 
them won't be able to lift it at all, and only one or two will be 
able to perform the task. You must give them half a hundred- 
weight, and see how they manoeuvre that, if you want to form 
any estimate of the muscular strength of each. So, a practised 
Examiner will seek for information respecting the mental vigour 
and training of candidates from the way in which they deal 
with questions easy enough to let reason, memory, and method have 
free play. 



UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL 123 

"No doubt, a great deal is to be done by the careful selection 
of Examiners, and by the copious introduction of practical work, 
to remove the evils inseparable from examination; but, under the 
best of circumstances, I believe that examination will remain 
but an imperfect test of knowledge, and a still more imperfect test 
of capacity, while it tells next to nothing about a man's power 
as an investigator. 

There is much to be said in favour of restricting the highest 
degrees in each Faculty, to those who have shown evidence of such 
original power, by prosecuting a research under the eye of the 
Professor in whose province it lies; or, at any rate, under con- 
ditions which shall afford satisfactory proof that the work is 
theirs. The notion may sound revolutionary, but it is really very 
old; for, I take it, that it lies at the bottom of that presentation 
of a thesis by the candidate for a doctorate, which has now, 
too often, become little better than a matter of form. 



Thus far, I have endeavoured to lay before you, in a too 
brief and imperfect manner, my views respecting the teaching half 
— the Magistri and Kegentes — of the University of the Future. 
Now let me turn to the learning half — the Scholares. 

If the Universities are to be sanctuaries of the highest culture 
of the country, those who would enter that sanctuary must not 
come with unwashed hands. If the good seed is to yield its 
hundredfold harvest, it must not be scattered amidst the stones of 
ignorance, or the tares of undisciplined indolence and wantonness. 
On the contrary, the soil must have been carefully prepared, 
and the Professor should find that the operations of clod-crushing, 
draining, and weeding, and even a good deal of planting, have 
been done by the Schoolmaster. 

That is exactly what the Professor does not find in any Univer- 
sity in the three Kingdoms that I can hear of — the reason of 
which state of things lies in the extremely faulty organisation 
of the majority of secondary schools. Students come to the 
Universities ill-prepared in classics and mathematics, not at all 
prepared in anything else ; and half their time is spent in learning 
that which they ought to have known when they came. 

I sometimes hear it said that the Scottish Universities differ 
from the English, in being to a much greater extent places of 
comparatively elementary education for a young class of students. 
But it would seem doubtful if any great difference of this kind 
really exists; for a high authority, himself Head of an English 
College, has solemnly affirmed that : " Elementary teaching of 
youths under twenty is now the only function performed by the 



124 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

University ;" and that Colleges are " boarding schools in which 
the elements of the learned languages are taught to youths." * 

This is not the first time that I have quoted those remarkable 
assertions. I should like to engrave them in public view, for they 
have not been refuted; and I am convinced that if their import 
is once clearly apprehended, they will play no mean part when 
the question of University reorganisation, with a view to practical 
measures, comes on for discussion. You are not responsible for 
this anomalous state of affairs now; but, as you pass into active 
life and acquire the political influence to which your education 
and your position should entitle you, you will become responsible 
for it, unless each in his sphere does his best to alter it, by 
insisting on the improvement of secondary schools. 

Your present responsibility is of another, though not less serious, 
kind. Institutions do not make men, any more than organisation 
makes life ; and even the ideal University we have been dreaming 
about will be but a superior piece of mechanism, unless each 
student strive after the ideal of the Scholar. And that ideal, it 
seems to me, has never been better embodied than by the great 
Poet, who, though lapped in luxury, the favourite of a Court, and 
the idol of his countrymen, remained through all the length of his 
honoured years a Scholar in Art, in Science, and in Life. 

" Wouldst shape a noble life? Then cast 
No backward glances towards the past; 
And though somewhat be lost and gone, 
Yet do thou act as one new-born. 
What each day needs, that shalt thou ask; 
Each day will set its proper task. 
Give others' work just share of praise; 
Not of thine own the merits raise. 
Beware no fellow man thou hate : 
And so in God's hand leave thy fate." t 

* Suggestions for Academical Organisation, with Especial Reference 
to Oxford. By the Rector of Lincoln. 

t Goethe, Zahme Xenien, Vierte Ahtheilung. I should be glad to 
take credit for the close and vigorous English version ; but it is my 
wife's, and not mine. 



ADDRESS ON UNIVERSITY EDUCATION 125 



IX. 

ADDEESS ON UNIVEESITT EDUCATIOK* 

THE actual work of the University founded in this city by the 
well-considered munificence of Johns Hopkins commences 
to-morrow, and among the many marks of confidence and 
good-will which have been bestowed upon me in the United States, 
there is none which I value more highly than that conferred by the 
authorities of the University when they invited me to deliver an 
address on such an occasion. 

For the event which has brought us together is, in many re- 
spects, unique. A vast property is handed over to an administra- 
tive body, hampered by no conditions save these : — That the prin- 
cipal shall not be employed in building: that the funds shall be 
appropriated, in equal proportions, to the promotion of natural 
knowledge and to the alleviation of the bodily sufferings of man- 
kind; and, finally, that neither political nor ecclesiastical sec- 
tarianism shall be permitted to disturb the impartial distribution 
of the testator's benefactions. 

In my experience of life a truth which sounds very much 
like a paradox has often asserted itself: namely, that a man's 
worst difficulties begin when he is able to do as he likes. So long 
as a man is struggling with obstacles he has an excuse for failure 
or shortcoming; but when fortune removes them all and gives him 
the power of doing as he thinks best, then comes the time of trial. 
There is but one right, and the possibilities of wrong are infinite. 
I doubt not that the trustees of the Johns Hopkins University felt 
the full force of this truth when they entered on the administra- 
tion of their trust a year and a half ago; and I can but admire 
the activity and resolution which have enabled them, aided by the 
able president whom they have selected, to lay down the great 
outlines of their plan, and carry it thus far into execution. It is 

* Delivered at the formal opening of the Johns Hopkins University 
at Baltimore, U. S. The total amount bequeathed by Johns Hopkins 
is more than 7.000,000 dollars. The sum of 3,500,000 dollars is appro- 
priated to a university, a like sum to a hospital, and the rest to local 
institutions of education and charity. 



126 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

impossible to study that plan without perceiving that great care, 
forethought, and sagacity, have been bestowed upon it, and that 
it demands the most respectful consideration. I have been en- 
deavouring to ascertain how far the principles which underlie it 
are in accordance with those which have been established in my 
own mind by much and long-continued thought upon educational 
questions. Permit me to place before you the result of my re- 
flections. 

Under one aspect a university is a particular kind of educa- 
tional institution, and the views which we may take of the proper 
nature of a university are corollaries from those which we hold 
respecting education in general. I think it must be admitted 
that the school should prepare for the university, and that the 
university should crown the edifice, the foundations of which are 
laid in the school. University education should not be something 
distinct from elementary education, but should be the natural 
outgrowth and development of the latter. Now I have a very 
clear conviction as to what elementary education ought to be; 
what it really may be, when properly organised ; and what I think 
it will be, before many years have passed over our heads, in Eng- 
land and in America. Such education should enable an aver- 
age boy of fifteen or sixteen to read and write his own language 
with ease and accuracy, and with a sense of literary excellence de- 
rived from the study of our classic writers : to have a general 
acquaintance with the history of his own country and with the 
great laws of social existence; to have acquired the rudiments of 
the physical and psychological sciences, and a fair knowledge of 
elementary arithmetic and geometry. He should have obtained 
an acquaintance with logic rather by example than by precept; 
while the acquirement of the elements of music and drawing 
should have been pleasure rather than work. 

It may sound strange to many ears if I venture to maintain the 
proposition that a young person, educated thus far, has had a 
liberal, though* perhaps not a full education. But it seems to me 
that such training as that to which I have referred may be 
termed liberal, in both the senses in which that word is em- 
ployed, with perfect accuracy. In the first place, it is liberal in 
breadth. It extends over the whole ground of things to be known 
and of faculties to be trained, and it gives equal importance to the 
two great sides of human activity — art and science. In the sec- 
ond place, it is liberal in the sense of being an education fitted for 
free men; for men to whom every career is open, and frorii whom 
their country may demand that they should be fitted to perform the 
duties of any career. I cannot too strongly impress upon you the 



ADDRESS ON UNIVERSITY EDUCATION 127 

fact that, with sucli a primary education as this, and with no 
more than is to be obtained by building strictly upon its lines, a 
man of ability may become a great writer or speaker, a statesman, 
a lawyer, a man of science, painter, sculptor, architect, or musi- 
cian. That even development of all a man's faculties, which is 
what properly constitutes culture, may be effected by such an 
education, while it opens the way for the indefinite strengthening 
of any special capabilities with which he may be gifted. 

In a country like this, where most men have to carve out their 
own fortunes and devote themselves early to the practical affairs 
of life, comparatively few can hope to pursue their studies up to, 
still less beyond, the age of manhood. But it is of vital importance 
to the welfare of the community that those who are relieved from 
the need of making a livelihood, and still more, those who are 
stirred by the divine impulses of intellectual thirst or artistic 
genius, should be enabled to devote themselves to the higher ser- 
vice of their kind, as centres of intelligence, interpreters of Na- 
ture, or creators of new forms of beauty. And it is the function of 
a university to furnish such men with the means of becoming 
that which it is their privilege and duty to be. To this end the 
university need cover no ground foreign to that occupied by the 
elementary school. Indeed it cannot; for the elementary instruc- 
tion which I have referred to embraces all the kinds of real 
knowledge and mental activity possible to man. The university 
can add no new departments of knowledge, can offer no new fields 
of mental activity ; but what it can do is to intensify and specialise 
the instruction in each department. Thus literature and philol- 
ogy, represented in the elementary school by English alone, in the 
University will extend over the ancient and modem languages. 
History, which, like charity, best begins at home, but, like char- 
ity, should not end there, will ramify into anthropology, archaeol- 
ogy* political history, and geography, with the history of the 
growth of the human mind and of its products in the shape 
of philosophy, science, and art. And the university will present 
to the student libraries, museums of antiquities, collections of 
coins, and the like, which will efficiently subserve these studies. 
Instruction in the elements of social economy, a most essential, 
but hitherto sadly-neglected part of elementary education, will 
develop in the university into political economy, sociology, and 
law. Physical science will have its great divisions of physical ge- 
ography, with geology and astronomy; physics; chemistry and 
biology; represented not merely by professors and their lectures, 
but by laboratories, in which the students, under guidance of 
demonstrators, will work out facts for themselves and come into 



128 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

that direct contact with reality which constitutes the fundamental 
distinction of scientific education. Mathematics will soar into its 
highest regions; while the high peaks of philosophy may be 
scaled by those whose aptitude for abstract thought has been 
awakened by elementary logic. Finally, schools of pictorial and 
plastic art, of architecture, and of music, will offer a thorough 
discipline in the principles and practice of art to those in 
whom lies nascent the rare faculty of aesthetic representation, or 
the still rarer powers of creative genius. 

The primary school and the university are the alpha and 
omega of education. Whether institutions intermediate between 
these (so-called secondary schools) should exist, appears to me to 
be a question of practical convenience. If such schools are estab- 
lished, the important thing is that they should be true intermedi- 
aries between the primary school and the university, keeping on 
the wide track of general culture, and not sacrificing one branch 
of knowledge for another. 

Such appear to me to be the broad outlines of the relations which 
the university, regarded as a place of education, ought to bear to 
the school, but a number of points of detail require some consid- 
eration, however briefiy and imperfectly I can deal with them. 
In the first place, there is the important question of the limitations 
which should be fixed to the entrance into the university; or, what 
qualifications should be required of those who propose to take ad- 
vantage of the higher training offered by the university. On the 
one hand, it is obviously desirable that the time and opportuni- 
ties of the university should not be wasted in conferring such 
elementary instruction as can be obtained elsewhere; while, on 
the other hand, it is no less desirable that the higher instruction 
of the university should be made accessible to every one who can 
take advantage of it, although he may not have been able to go 
through any very extended course of education. My own feeling 
is distinctly against any absolute and defined preliminary exam- 
ination, the passing of which shall be an essential condition of 
admission to the university. I would admit to the university any 
one who could be reasonably expected to profit by the instruction 
offered to him; and I should be inclined, on the whole, to test the 
fitness of the student, not by examination before he enters the 
university, but at the end of his first term of study. If, on examin- 
ation in the branches of knowledge to which he has devoted him- 
self, he show himself deficient in industry or in capacity, it 
will be best for the university and best for himself, to prevent him 
from pursuing a vocation for which he is obviously unfit. And I 
hardly know of any other method than this by which his fitness 



ADDRESS ON UNIVERSITY EDUCATION 129 

or unfitness can be safely ascertained, thongh no doubt a good 
deal may be done, not by formal cut and dried examination, but 
by judicious questioning, at the outset of bis career. 

Another very important and difficult practical question is, 
whether a definite course of study shall be laid down for those 
who enter the university; whether a curriculum shall be 
prescribed; or whether the student shall be allowed to range 
at will among the subjects which are open to him. And this 
question is inseparably connected with another, namely, the 
conferring of degrees. It is obviously impossible that any stu- 
dent should pass through the whole of the series of courses of 
instruction offered by a university. If a degree is to be con- 
ferred as a mark of proficiency in knowledge, it must be given 
on the ground that the candidate is proficient in a certain fraction 
of those studies; and then will arise the necessity of insuring an 
equivalency of degrees, so that the course by which a degree 
is obtained shall mark approximately an equal amount of labour 
and of acquirements, in all cases. But this equivalency can hardly 
be secured in any other way than by prescribing a series of 
definite lines of study. This is a matter which will require grave 
consideration. The important points to bear in mind, I think, 
are that there should not be too many subjects in the curriculum, 
and that the aim should be the attainment of thorough and sound 
knowledge of each. 

One half of the Johns Hopkins bequest is devoted to the es- 
tablishment of a hospital, and it was the desire of the testator 
that the university and the hospital should co-operate in the pro- 
motion of medical education. The trustees will unquestionably 
take the best advice that is to be had as to the construction and 
administration of the hospital. In respect to the former point, 
they will doubtless remember that a hospital may be so arranged 
as to kill more than it cures; and, in regard to the latter, that a 
hospital may spread the spirit of pauperism among the well-to-do, 
as well as relieve the sufferings of the destitute. It is not for me 
to speak on these topics — rather let me confine myself to the one 
matter on which my experience as a student of medicine, and 
an examiner of long standing, who has taken a great interest in the 
subject of medical education, may entitle me to a hearing. 1 
mean the nature of medical education itself, and the co-operation 
of the university in its promotion. 

What is the object of medical education? It is to enable the 
practitioner, on the one hand, to prevent disease by his knowledge 
of hygiene; on the other hand, to divine its nature, and to allevi- 
ate or cure it, by his knowledge of pathology, therapeutics, and 



130 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

practical medicine. That is his business in life, and if he has 
not a thorough and practical knowledge of the conditions of health, 
of the causes which tend to the establishment of disease, of the 
meaning of symptoms, and of the uses of medicines and oper- 
ative appliances, he is incompetent, even if he were the best anato- 
mist, or physiologist, or chemist, that ever took a gold medal or 
won a prize certificate. This is one great truth respecting medical 
education. Another is, that all practice in medicine is based upon 
theory of some sort or other; and therefore, that it is desirable 
to have such theory in the closest possible accordance with fact. 
The veriest empiric who gives a drug in one case because he has 
seen it do good in another of apparently the same sort, acts upon 
the theory that similarity of superficial symptoms means simi- 
larity of lesions ; which, by the way, is perhaps as wild an hypothe- 
sis as could be invented. To understand the nature of disease 
we must understand health, and the understanding of the healthy 
body means the having a knowledge of its structure and of the way 
in which its manifold actions are performed, which is what is 
technically termed human anatomy and human physiology. The 
physiologist again must needs possess an acquaintance with phys- 
ics and chemistry, inasmuch as physiology is, to a great extent, 
applied physics and chemistry. For ordinary purposes a limited 
amount of such knowledge is all that is needful; but for the pur- 
suit of the higher branches of physiology no knowledge of these 
branches of science can be too extensive, or too profound. Again, 
what we call therapeutics, which has to do with the action of drugs 
and medicines on the living organism, is, strictly speaking, a 
branch of experimental physiology, and is daily receiving a greater 
and greater experimental development. 

The third great fact which is to be taken into consideration in 
dealing with medical education, is that the practical necessities 
of life do not, as a rule, allow aspirants to medical practice to 
give more than three, or it may be four years to their studies. 
Let us put it at four years, and then reflect that, in the course 
of this time, a young man fresh from school has to acquaint 
himself with medicine, surgery, obstetrics, therapeutics, pathology, 
hygiene, as well as with the anatomy and the physiology of the 
human body ; and that his knowledge should be of such a character 
that it can be relied upon in any emergency, and always ready 
for practical application. Consider, in addition, that the medical 
practitioner may be called upon, at any moment, to give evidence 
in a court of justice in a criminal case; and that it is therefore 
well that he should know something of the laws of evidence, and 
of what we call medical jurisprudence. On a medical certificate. 



ADDRESS ON UNIVERSITY EDUCATION 131 

a man may be taken from his home and from his business and 
confined in a lunatic asylum; surely, therefore, it is desirable 
that the medical practitioner should have some rational and clear 
conceptions as to the nature and symptoms of mental disease. 
Bearing in mind all these requirements of medical education, you 
will admit that the burden on the young aspirant for the medical 
profession is somewhat of the heaviest, and that it needs some 
care to prevent his intellectual back from being broken. 

Those who are acquainted with the existing systems of medical 
education will observe that, long as is the catalogue of studies 
which I have enumerated, I have omitted to mention several that 
enter into the usual medical curriculum of the present day. I 
have said not a word about zoology, comparative anatomy, botany, 
or materia raedica. Assuredly this is from no light estimate of 
the value or importance of such studies in themselves. It may 
be taken for granted that I should be the last person in the 
world to object to the teaching of zoology, or comparative anatomy, 
in themselves; but I have the strongest feeling that, considering 
the number and the gravity of those studies through which a medi- 
cal man must pass, if he is to be competent to discharge the serious 
duties which devolve upon him, subjects which lie so remote 
as these do from his practical pursuits should be rigorously ex- 
cluded. The young man, who has enough to do in order to acquire 
such familiarity with the structure of the human body as will 
enable him to perform the operations of surgery, ought not, in 
my judgment, to be occupied with investigations into the anatomy 
of crabs and starfishes. Undoubtedly the doctor should know the 
common poisonous plants of his own country when he sees them; 
but that knowledge may be obtained by a few hours devoted to 
the examination of specimens of such plants, and the desirable- 
ness of such knowledge is no justification, to my mind, for spend- 
ing three months over the study of systematic botany. Again, 
materia medica, so far as it is a knowledge of drugs, is the busi- 
ness of the druggist. In all other callings the necessity of the 
division of labour is fully recognised, and it is absurd to require 
of the medical man that he should not avail himself of the special 
knowledge of those whose business it is to deal in the drugs which 
he uses. It is all very well that the physician shoiild know that 
castor oil comes from a plant, and castoreum from an animal, and 
how they are to be prepared; but for all the practical purposes of 
his profession that knowledge is not of one whit more value, has no 
more relevancy, than the knowledge of how the steel of his scalpel 
is made. 

All knowledge is good. It is impossible to say that any frag- 



132 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

ment of knowledge, however insignificant or remote from one's 
ordinary pursuits, may not some day be turned to account. But 
in medical education, above all things, it is to be recollected that, 
in order to know a little well, one must be content to be ignorant 
of a great deal. 

Let it not be supposed that I am proposing to narrow medical 
education, or, as the cry is, to lower the standard of the profession. 
Depend upon it there is only one way of really ennobling any 
calling, and that is to make those who pursue it real masters 
of their craft, men who can truly do that which they pro- 
fess to be able to do, and which they are credited with being able 
to do by the public. And there is no position so ignoble as that 
of the so-called " liberally-educated practitioner," who may be 
able to read Galen in the original; who knows all the plants, 
from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop upon the wall; but 
who finds himself, with the issues of life and death in his hands, 
ignorant, blundering, and bewildered, because of his ignorance of 
the essential and fu.ndamental truths upon which practice must be 
based. Moreover, I venture to say, that any man who has serious- 
ly studied all the essential branches of medical knowledge; who 
has the needful acquaintance with the elements of physical sci- 
ence; who has been brought by medical jurisprudence into con- 
tact with law; whose study of insanity has taken him into the 
fields of psychology; has ipso facto received a liberal education. 

Having lightened the medical curriculum by culling out of it 
everything which is unessential, we may next consider whether 
something may not be done to aid the medical student toward the 
acquirement of real knowledge by modifying the system of exam- 
ination. In England, within my recollection, it was the practice 
to require of the medical student attendance on lectures upon the 
most diverse topics during three years; so that it often happened 
that he would have to listen, in the course of a day, to four 
or five lectures upon totally different subjects, in addition to' the 
hours given to dissection and to hospital practice : and he was 
required to keep all the knowledge he could pick up, in this dis- 
tracting fashion, at examination point, until, at the end of three 
years, he was set down to a table and questioned pell-mell upon 
all the different matters with which he had been striving to make 
acquaintance. A worse system and one more calculated to ob- 
struct the acquisition of sound knowledge and to give full play 
to the " crammer " and the ''' grinder " could hardly have been . 
devised by human ingenuity. Of late years great reforms have 
taken place. Examinations have been divided so as to diminish 
the number of subjects among which the attention has to be dis- 



ADDRESS ON UNIVERSITY EDUCATION 133 

tributed. Practical examination lias been largely introduced; 
biit there still remains, even under the present systemi, too much 
of the old evil inseparable from the contemporaneous pursuit of a 
multiplicity of diverse studies. 

Proposals have recently been made to get rid of general exam- 
inations altogether, to permit the student to be examined in each 
subject at the end of his attendance on the class ; and then, in case 
of the result being satisfactory, to allow him to have done with it ; 
and I may say that this method has been pursued for many years 
in the Eoyal School of Mines in London, and has been found to 
work very well. It allows the student to concentrate his mind 
upon what he is about for the time being, and then to dismiss it. 
Those who are occupied in intellectual work, will, I think, agree 
with me that it is important, not so much to know a thing, as 
to have known it, and known it thoroughly. If you have once 
known a thing in this way it is easy to renew your knowledge 
when you have forgotten it; and when you begin to take the 
subject up again, it slides back upon the familiar grooves with 
great facility. 

Lastly comes the question as to how the university may co- 
operate in advancing medical education. A medical school is 
strictly a technical school — a school in which a practical pro- 
fession is taught — while a university ought to be a place in 
which knowledge is obtained without direct reference to profes- 
sional purposes. It is clear, therefore, that a university and its 
antecedent, the school, may best co-operate with the medical 
school by making due provision for the study of those branches 
of knowledge which lie at the foundation of medicine. 

At present, young men come to the medical schools without a 
conception of even the elements of physical science; they learn, 
for the first time, that there are such sciences as physics, chem- 
istry, and physiology, and are introduced to anatomy as a new 
thing. It may be safely said that, with a large proportion of medi- 
cal students, much of the first session is wasted in learning how 
to learn — in familiarising themselves with utterly strange con- 
ceptions, and in awakening their dormant and wholly untrained 
powers of observation and of manipulation. It is difficult to 
over-estimate the magnitude of the obstacles which are thrown 
in the way of scientific training by the existing system of school 
education. ISTot only are men trained in mere book-work, ig- 
norant of what observation means, but the habit of learning from 
books alone begets a disgust of observation. The book-learned 
student will rather trust to what he sees in a book than to 
witness of his own eye§« 



134 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

There is not the least reason why this should be so, and, in 
fact, when elementary education becomes that which I have as- 
sumed it ought to be, this state of things will no longer exist. 
There is not the slightest difiiculty in giving sound elementary 
instruction in physics, in chemistry, and in the elements of human 
physiology, in ordinary schools. In other words, there is no 
reason why the student should not come to the medical school, 
provided with as much knowledge of these several sciences as he 
ordinarily picks up in the course of his first year of attendance at 
the medical school. 

I am not saying this without full practical justification for the 
statement. For the last eighteen years we have had in England a 
system of elementary science teaching carried out under the 
auspices of the Science and Art Department, by which elementary 
scientific instruction is made readily accessible to the scholars of 
all the elementary schools in the country. Commencing with 
small beginnings, carefully developed and improved, that system 
now brings up for examination as many as seven thousand schol- 
ars in the subject of human physiology alone. I can say that, 
out of that number, a large proportion have acquired a fair 
amount of substantial knowledge; and that no inconsiderable 
percentage show as good an acquaintance with human physiology 
as used to be exhibited by the average candidates for medical 
degrees in the University of London, when I was first an exam- 
iner there twenty years ago; and quite as much knowledge as is 
possessed by the ordinary student of medicine at the present day. 
I am justified, therefore, in looking forward to the time when the 
student who proposes to devote himself to medicine will come, not 
absolutely raw and inexperienced as he is at present, but in a 
certain state of preparation for further study; and I look to the 
university to help him still further forward in that stage of prep- 
aration, through the organisation of its biological department. 
Here the student will find means of acquainting himself with 
the phenomena of life in their broadest acceptation. He will 
study not botany and zoology, which, as I have said, would take 
him too far away from his ultimate goal; but, by duly arranged 
instruction, combined with work in the laboratory upon the lead- 
ing types of animal and vegetable life, he will lay a broad, and 
at the same time solid, foundation of biological knowledge; he 
will come to his medical studies with a comprehension of the 
great truths of morphology and of physiology, with his hands 
trained to dissect and his eyes taught to see. I have no hesita- 
tion in saying that such preparation is worth a full year added on 
to the medical curriculum. In other words, it will set free that 



ADDRESS ON UNIVERSITY EDUCATION 135 

much, time for attention to those studies which bear directly upon 
the student's most grave and serious duties as a medical prac- 
titioner. 

Up to this point I have considered only the teaching aspect 
of your great foundation, that function of the university 
in virtue of which it plays the part of a reservoir of ascertained 
truth, so far as our symbols can ever interpret nature. All can 
learn ; all can drink of this lake. It is given to few to add to 
the store of knowledge, to strike new springs of thought, or to 
shape new forms of beauty. But so sure as it is that men live not 
by bread, but by ideas, so sure is, it that the future of the world 
lies in the hands of those who are able to carry the interpretation 
of nature a step further than their predecessors; so certain is it 
that the highest function of a university is to seek out those men, 
cherish them, and give their ability to serve their kind full play. 

I rejoice to observe that the encouragement of research occupies 
so prominent a place in your official documents, and in the 
wise and liberal inaugural address of your president. This sub- 
ject of the encouragement, or, as it is sometimes called, the 
endowment of research, has of late years greatly exercised the 
minds of men in England. It was one of the main topics of dis- 
cussion by the members of the Royal Commission of whom I was 
one, and who not long since issued their report, after five years' 
labour. Many seem to think that this question is mainly one of 
money; that you can go into the market and buy research, and 
that supply will follow demand, as in the ordinary course of com- 
merce. This view does not commend itself to my mind. I know 
of no more difficult practical problem than the discovery of a 
method of encouraging and supporting the original investigator 
without opening the door to nepotism and jobbery. My own con- 
viction is admirably summed up in the passage of your president's 
address, " that the best investigators are usually those who have 
also the responsibilities of instruction, gaining thus the incite- 
ment of colleagues, the encouragement of pupils, and the obser- 
vation of the public." 

At the commencement of this address I ventured to assume that 
I might, if I thought fit, criticise the arrangements which have 
been made by the board of trustees, but I confess that I have little 
to do but to appla'ftd them. Most wise and sagacious seems to me 
the determination not to build for the present. It has been my 
fate to see great educational funds fossilise into mere bricks and 
mortar, in the petrifying springs of architecture, with nothing 
left to work the institution they were intended to support. A 
great warrior is said to have made a desert and called it peace. 



136 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

Administrators of educational funds have sometimes made a palace 
and called it a university. If I may venture to give advice in a 
matter which lies out of my proper competency, I would say that 
whenever you do build, get an honest bricklayer, and make him 
build you just such rooms as you really want, leaving ample 
space for expansion. And a century hence, when the Baltimore 
and Ohio shares are at one thousand premium, and you have 
endowed all the professors you need and built all the labora- 
tories that are wanted, and have the best museum and the finest 
library that can be imagined; then, if you have a few hundred 
thousand dollars you don't know what to do with, send for an 
architect and tell him to put up a facade. If American is similar 
to English experience, any other course will probably lead you into 
having some stately structure, good for your architect's fame, 
but not in the least what you want. 

It appears to me that what I have ventured to lay down as 
the principles which should govern the relations of a university 
to education in general, are entirely in accordance with the 
measures you have adopted. You have set no restrictions upon 
access to the instruction you propose to give; you have provided 
that such instruction, either as given by the university or by 
associated institutions, should cover the field of human intellec- 
tual activity. You have recognised the importance of encour- 
aging research. You propose to provide means by which young 
men, who may be full of zeal for a literary or for a scientific 
career, but who also may have mistaken aspiration for inspiration, 
may bring their capacities to a test, and give their powers a fair 
trial. If such a one fail, his endowment terminates, and there 
is no harm done. If he succeed, you may give power of flight to 
the genius of a Davy or a Faraday, a Carlyle or a Locke, whose 
influence on the future of his fellow-men shall be absolutely in- 
calculable. 

You have enunciated the principle that " the glory of the uni- 
versity should rest upon the character of the teachers and scholars, 
and not upon the number of buildings constructed for their 
use." And I look upon it as an essential and most important fea- 
ture of your plan that the income of the professors and teachers 
shall be independent of the number of students whom they can 
attract. In this way you provide against the danger, patent else- 
where, of finding attempts at improvement obstructed by vested 
interests; and, in the department of medical education especially, 
you are free of the temptation to set loose upon the world men 
utterly incompetent to perform the serious and responsible duties 
of their profession. 



ADDRESS ON UNIVERSITY EDUCATION 137 

It is a delicate matter for a stranger to the practical working 
of your institutions, like myself, to pretend to give an opinion as 
to the organisation of your governing power. I can conceive noth- 
ing better than that it should remain as it is, if you can secure a 
succession of wise, liberal, honest, and conscientious men to fill 
the vacancies that occur among you. I do not greatly believe in 
the efilcacy of any kind of machinery for securing such a result; 
but I would venture to suggest that the exclusive adoption of the 
method of co-optation for filling the vacancies which must occur 
in your body, appears to me to be somewhat like a tempting of 
Providence. Doubtless there are grave practical objections to 
the appointment of persons outside of your body and not directly 
interested in the welfare of the university; but might it not be well 
if there were an understanding that your academic staff should 
be officially represented on the board, perhaps even the heads of 
one or two independent learned bodies, so that academic opinion 
and the views of the outside world might have a certain influ- 
ence in that most important matter, the appointment of your 
professors? I throw out these suggestions, as I have said, in 
ignorance of the practical difficulties that may lie in the way of 
carrying them into effect, on the general ground that personal 
and local influences are very subtle, and often unconscious, while 
the future greatness and efficiency of the noble institution which 
now commences its work must largely depend upon its freedom 
from them. 



I constantly hear Americans speak of the charm which our old 
mother country has for them, of the delight with which they 
wander through the streets of ancient towns, or climb the battle- 
ments of mediaeval strongholds, the names of which are indis- 
solubly associated with the great epochs of that noble literature 
which is our common inheritance; or with the blood-stained steps 
of that secular progress, by which the descendants of the savage 
Britons and of the wild pirates of the North Sea have become 
converted into warriors of order and champions of peaceful 
freedom, exhausting what still remains of the old Berserk spirit 
in subduing nature, and turning the wilderness into a garden. 
But anticipation has no less charm' than retrospect, and to an 
Englishman landing upon your shores for the first time, travel- 
ling for hundreds of miles through strings of great and well- 
ordered cities, seeing your enormous actual, and almost infinite 
potential wealth, in all commodities, and in the energy and ability 
which turn wealth to account, there is something sublime in the 
vista of the future. Do not suppose that I am pandering to what 



138 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

is commonly understood by national pride. I cannot say that I 
am in the slightest degree impressed by yonr bigness, or your 
material resources, as such. Size is not grandeur, and territory 
does not make a nation. The great issue, about which hangs a 
true sublimity, and the terror of overhanging fate, is what are you 
going to do with all these things? What is to be the end to 
which these are to be the means ? You are making a novel ex- 
periment in politics on the greatest scale which the world has yet 
seen. Forty millions at your first centenary, it is reasonably to be 
expected that, at the second, these states will be occupied by two 
hundred millions of English-speaking people, spread over an area 
as large as that of Europe, and with climates and interests as 
diverse as those of Spain and Scandinavia, England and Russia. 
You and your descendants have to ascertain whether this great 
mass will hold together under the forms of a republic, and the 
despotic reality of universal suffrage; whether state rights will 
hold out against centralisation, without separation, whether cen- 
tralisation will get the better, without actual or disguised mon- 
archy; whether shifting corruption is better than a permanent 
bureaucracy; and as population thickens in your great cities, and 
the pressure of want is felt, the gaunt spectre of pauperism will 
stalk among you, and communism and socialism will claim to be 
heard. Truly America has a great future before her ; great in toil, 
in care, and in responsibility; great in true glory if she be guided 
in wisdom and righteousness; great in shame if she fail. I can- 
not understand why other nations should envy you, or be blind 
to the fact that it is for the highest interest of mankind that 
you should succeed; but the one condition of success, your sole 
safeguard, is the moral worth and intellectual clearness of the 
individual citizen. Education cannot give these, but it may 
cherish them and bring them to the front in whatever station of 
society they are to be found; and the universities ought to be, 
and may be, the fortresses of the higher life of the nation. 

May the university which commences its practical activity to- 
morrow abundantly fulfil its high purpose; may its renown as a 
seat of true learning, a centre of free inquiry, a focus of intellec- 
tual light, increase year by year, until men wander hither from 
all parts of the earth, as of old they sought Bologna, or Paris, 
or Oxford. 

And it is pleasant to me to fancy that, among the English 
students who are drawn to you at that time, there may linger a 
dim tradition that a countryman of theirs was permitted to ad- 
dress you as he has done to-day, and to feel as if your hopes were 
his hopes and your success his joy. 



ON THE STUDY OF BIOLOGY 139 



X. 

ON THE STUDY OF BIOLOGY. 

IT is my duty to-night to speak about the study of Biology, 
and while it may be that there are many of my audience 
who are quite familiar with that study, yet as a lecturer of 
some standing, it would, I know by experience, be very bad policy 
on my part to suppose such to be extensively the case. On the 
contrary, I must imagine that there are many of you who would 
like to know what Biology is; that there are others who have that 
amount of information, but would nevertheless gladly hear why it 
should be worth their while to study Biology; and yet others, 
again, to whom these two points are clear, but who desire to learn 
how they had best study it, and, finally, when they had best 
study it. 

I shall, therefore, address myself to the endeavour to give you 
some answer to these four questions — what Biology is; why it 
should be studied; how it should be studied; and when it should 
be studied. 

In the first place, in respect to what Biology is, there are, I 
believe, some persons who imagine that the term " Biology " is 
simply a new-fangled denomination, a neologism in short, for what 
used to be known under the title of " Natural History " ; but I 
shall try to show you, on the contrary, that the word is the 
expression of the growth of science during the last 200 years, 
and came into existence half a century ago. 

At the revival of learning, knowledge was divided into two 
kinds — the knowledge of nature and the knowledge of man; for 
it was the current idea then (and a great deal of that ancient 
conception still remains) that there was a sort of essential anti- 
thesis, not to say antagonism, between nature and man; and that 
the two had not very much to do with one another, except that 
the one was oftentimes exceedingly troublesome to the other. 
Though it is one of the salient merits of our great philosophers of 
the seventeenth century, that they recognised but one scientific 
method, applicable alike to man and to nature, we find this notion 
of the existence of a broad distinction between nature and man 



140 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

in the writings both of Bacon and of Hobbes of Malmesbury; 
and I have brought with me that famous work which is now so 
little known, greatly as it deserves to be studied, " The Leviathan," 
in order that I may put to you in the wonderfully terse and clear 
language of Thomas Hobbes, what was his view of the matter. 
He says : — 

" The register of knowledge of fact is called history. Whereof 
there be two sorts, one called natural history; which is the history 
of such facts or effects of nature as have no dependence on man's 
will; such as are the histories of metals, plants, animals, regions, 
and the like. The other is civil history; which is the history of 
the voluntary actions of raen in commonwealths." 

So that all history of fact was divided into these two great 
groups of natural and of civil history. The Royal Society was in 
course of foundation about the time that Hobbes was writing this 
book, which was published in 1651; and that Society was termed 
a " Society for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge," which 
was then nearly the same thing as a " Society for the Improvement 
of Natural History." As time went on, and the various branches 
of human knowledge became more distinctly developed and sep- 
arated from one another, it was found that some were much more 
susceptible of precise mathematical treatment than others. The 
publication of the " Principia " of Newton, which probably gave a 
greater stimulus to physical science than any work ever published 
before, or which is likely to be published hereafter, showed that 
precise mathematical methods were applicable to those branches 
of science such as astronomy, and what we now call physics, which 
occupy a very large portion of the domain of what the older writ- 
ers understood by natural history. And inasmuch as the partly 
deductive and partly experimental methods of treatment to which 
Newton and others subjected these branches of human knowledge, 
showed that the phenomena of nature which belonged to them 
were susceptible of explanation, and thereby came within the 
reach of what was called " philosophy," in those days ; so much of 
this kind of knowledge as was not included under astronomy 
came to be spoken of as " natural philosophy " — a term which 
Bacon had employed in a much wider sense. Time went on, and 
yet other branches of science developed themselves. Chemistry 
took a definite shape; and since all these sciences, such as astron- 
omy, natural philosophy, and chemistry, were susceptible either of 
mathematical treatment or of experimental treatment, or of both, 
a broad distinction was drawn between the experimental branches 
of what had previously been called natural history and the observa- 
tional branches — those in which experiment was (or appeared 



ON THE STUDY OF BIOLOGY. 141 

to be) of doubtful use, and where, at that time, mathematical 
methods were inapplicable. Under these circumstances the old 
name of " Natural History " stuck by the residuum of those 
phenomena which were not, at that time, susceptible of mathe- 
matical or experimental treatment; that is to say, those phenom- 
ena of nature which come now under the general heads of phys- 
ical geography, geology, mineralogy, the history of plants, and 
the history of animals. It was in this sense that the term was 
understood by the great writers of the middle of the last century 
■ — Bufion and Linnseus — by BufPon in his great work, the " His- 
toire Naturelle Generale," and by Linnseus in his splendid achieve- 
ment, the " Systema l^aturse." The subjects they deal with are 
spoken of as " Natural History," and they called themselves and 
were called " Naturalists." But you will observe that this was 
not the original meaning of these terms; but that they had, by 
this time, acquired a signification widely different from that 
which they possessed primitively. 

The sense in which " Natural History " was used at the time 
I am now speaking of has, to a certain extent, endured to the 
present day. There are now in existence in some of our northern 
universities, chairs of " Civil and Natural History " in which 
" Natural History " is used to indicate exactly what Hobbes and 
Bacon meant by that term. The unhappy incumbent of the 
chair of Natural History is, or was, supposed tp cover the whole 
ground of geology, mineralogy, and zoology, perhaps even botany, 
in his lectures. 

But as science made the marvellous progress which it did make 
at the latter end of the last and the beginning of the present 
century, thinking men began to discern that under this title of 
" Natural History " there were included very heterogeneous con- 
stituents — that, for example, geology and mineralogy were, in 
many respects, widely different from botany and zoology; that a 
man might obtain an extensive knowledge of the structure and 
functions of plants and animals without having need to enter 
upon the study of geology or mineralogy, and vice versa; and, 
further as knowledge advanced, it became clearer that there was a 
great analogy, a very close alliance, between those two sciences, 
of botany and zoology, which deal with living beings, while they 
are much more widely separated from all other studies. It is 
due to Buffon to remark that he clearly recognised this great fact. 
He says : " Ces deux genres d'etres organises [les animaux et les 
vegetaux] ont beaucoup plus de proprietes communes que de dif- 
ferences reelles." Therefore, it is not wonderful that, at the be- 
ginning of the present century, in two different countries, and 



142 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

so far as I know, without any intercommunication, two famous 
men clearly conceived the notion of uniting the sciences which 
deal with living matter into one whole, and of dealing with 
them as one discipline. In fact, I may say there were three men 
to whom this idea occurred contemporaneously, although there 
were but two who carried it into effect, and only one who worked 
it out completely. The persons to whom I refer were the eminent 
physiologist Bichat, and the great naturalist Lamarck, in France; 
and a distinguished German, Treviranus. Bichat assumed the 
existence of a special group of "physiological" sciences. La- 
marck, in a work published in 1801, for the first time made use 
of the name " Biologic," from the two Greek words which signify 
a discourse upon life and living things. About the same time 
it occurred to Treviranus, that all those sciences which deal with 
living matter are essentially and fundamentally one, and ought 
to be treated as a whole; and, in the year 1802, he published the 
first volume of what he also called " Biologic." Treviranus's 
great merit lies in this, that he worked out his idea, and wrote 
the very remarkable book to which I refer. It consists of six 
volumes, and occupied its author for twenty years — from 1802 
to 1822. 

That is the origin of the term " Biology " ; and that is how 
it has come about that all clear thinkers and lovers of consistent 
nomenclature have substituted for the old confusing name of 
" Natural History," which has conveyed so many meanings, the 
term " Biology " which denotes the whole of the sciences which 
deal with living things, whether they be animals or whether they 
be plants. Some little time ago — in the course of this year, I 
think — I was favoured by a learned classic, Dr. Field of Nor- 
wich, with a disquisition, in which he endeavoured to prove that, 
from a philological point of view, neither Treviranus nor La- 
marck had any right to coin this new word " Biology " for their 
purpose ; that, in fact, the Greek word " Bios " had relation 
only to human life and human affairs, and that a different word 
was employed by the Greeks when they wished to speak of the 
life of animals and plants. So Dr. Field tells us we are all 
wrong in using the term biology, and that we ought to employ 
another; only he is not sure about the propriety of that which 
he proposes as a substitute. It is a somewhat hard one — "zooto- 
cology." I am sorry we are wrong, because we are likely to con- 
tinue so. In these matters we must have some sort of " Statute 
of Limitations." When a name has been employed for half a 
century, persons of authority have been using it, and its sense 



ON THE STUDY OF BIOLOGY 143 

has become well understood, I am afraid people will go on using 
it, whatever the weight of philological objection. 

Now that we have arrived at the origin of this word " Biology," 
the next point to consider is : What ground does it cover ? I have 
said that in its strict technical sense, it denotes all the phenomena 
which are exhibited by living things, as distinguished from those 
which are not living; but while that is all very well, so long as 
we confine ourselves to the lower animals and to plants, it lands 
us in considerable difficulties when we reach the higher forms 
of living things. For whatever view we may entertain about 
the nature of man, one thing is perfectly certain, that he is a 
living creature. Hence, if our definition is to be interpreted 
strictly, we must include man and all his ways and works under 
the head of Biology; in which case, we should find that psy- 
chology, politics, and political economy would be absorbed into 
the province of Biology. In fact, civil history would be merged 
in natural history. In strict logic it may be hard to object to 
this course, because no one can doubt that the rudiments and 
outlines of our own mental phenomena are traceable among the 
lower animals. They have their economy and their polity, and 
if, as is always admitted, the polity of bees and the common- 
wealth of wolves fall within the purview of the biologist proper, 
it becomes hard to say why we should not include therein human 
affairs, which, in so many cases, resemble those of the bees in 
zealous getting, and are not without a certain parity in the 
proceedings of the wolves. The real fact is that we biologists 
are a self-sacrificing people; and inasmuch as, on a moderate 
estimate, there are about a quarter of a million different species 
of animals and plants to know about already, we feel that we 
have more than sufficient territory. There has been a sort of 
practical convention by which we give up to a different branch 
of science what Bacon and Hobbes would have called " Civil 
History." That branch of science has constituted itself under 
the head of Sociology. I may use phraseology which, at present, 
will be well understood and say that we have allowed that prov- 
ince of Biology to become autonomous; but I should like you to 
recollect that that is a sacrifice, and that you should not be 
surprised if it occasionally happens that you see a biologist ap- 
parently trespassing in the region of philosophy or politics; or 
meddling with human education; because, after all, that is a 
part of his kingdom which he has only voluntarily forsaken. 

Having now defined the meaning of the word Biology, and 
having indicated the general scope of Biological Science, I turn 
to my second question, which is — Why should we study Biology. 



144 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

Possibly the time may come when that will seem a very odd 
question. That we, living creatures, should not feel a certain 
amount of interest in what it is that constitutes our life will 
eventually, under altered ideas of the fittest objects of human 
inquiry, appear to be a singular phenomenon; but at present, 
judging by the practice of teachers and educators. Biology would 
seem to be a topic that does not concern us at all. I propose to 
put before you a few considerations with which I dare say many 
will be familiar already, but which will suffice to show — not 
fully, because to demonstrate this point fully would take a great 
many lectures — that there are some very good and substantial 
reasons why it may be advisable that we should know something 
about this branch of human learning. 

I myself entirely agree with another sentiment of the phil- 
osopher of Malmesbury, " that the scope of all speculation is 
the performance of some action or thing to be done," and I have 
not any very great respect for, or interest in, mere knowing as 
such. I judge of the value of human pursuits by their bearing 
upon human interests; in other words, by their utility; but I 
should like that we should quite clearly understand what it is 
that we mean by this word " utility." In an Englishman's mouth 
it generally means that by which we get pudding or praise, or 
both. I have no doubt that is one meaning of the word utility, 
but it by no means includes all I mean by utility. I think that 
knowledge of every kind is useful in proportion as it tends to 
give people right ideas, which are essential to the foundation 
of right practice, and to remove wrong ideas, which are the 
no less essential foundations and fertile mothers of every descrip- 
tion of error in practice. And inasmuch as, whatever practical 
people may say; this world is, after all, absolutely governed by 
ideas, and very often by the wildest and most hypothetical ideas, 
it is a matter of the very greatest importance that our theories 
of things, and even of things that seem a long way apart from 
our daily lives, should be as far as possible true, and as far as 
possible removed from error. It is not only in the coarser, prac- 
tical sense of the word " utility," but in this higher and broader 
sense, that I measure the value of the study of biology by its 
utility; and I shall try to point out to you that you will feel 
the need of some knowledge of biology at a great many turns of 
this present nineteenth century life of ours. For example, most 
of us attach great importance to the conception which we enter- 
tain of the position of man in this universe and his relation to 
the rest of nature. We have almost all been told, and most of 
us hold by the tradition, that man occupies an isolated and 



ON THE STUDY OF BIOLOGY 145 

peculiar position in nature; that though he is in the world he is 
not of the world; that his relations to things about him are of a 
remote character; that his origin is recent, his duration likely 
to be short, and that he is the great central figure round which 
other things in this world revolve. But this is not what the 
biologist tells us. 

At the present moment you will be kind enough to separate 
me from them, because it is in no way essential to my present 
argument that I should advocate their views. Don't suppose that 
I am saying this for the purpose of escaping the responsibility 
of their beliefs; indeed, at other times and in other places, I do 
not think that point has been left doubtful; but I want clearly 
to point out to you that for my present argument they may all 
be wrong; and, nevertheless, my argument will hold good. The 
biologists tell us that all this is an entire mistake. They turn 
to the physical organisation of man. They examine his whole 
structure, his bony frame and all that clothes it. They resolve 
him into the finest particles into which the microscope will enable 
them to break him up. They consider the performance of his 
various functions and activities, and they look at the manner in 
which he occurs on the surface of the world. Then they turn 
to other animals, and taking the first handy domestic animal — 
say a dog — they profess to be able to demonstrate that the 
analysis of the dog leads them, in gross, to precisely the same 
results as the analysis of the man; that they find almost identi- 
cally the same bones, having the same relations; that they can 
name the muscles of the dog by the names of the muscles of the 
man, and the nerves of the dog by those of the nerves of the man^ 
and that, such structures and organs of sense as we find in the 
man such also we find in the dog; they analyse the brain and 
spinal cord and they find that the nomenclature which fits the 
one answers for the other. They carry their microscopic inquiries 
in the case of the dog as far as they can, and they find that his 
body is resolvable into the same elements as those of the man. 
Moreover, they trace back the dog's and the man's development, 
and they find that, at a certain stage of their existence, the two 
creatures are not distinguishable the one from the other; they 
find that the dog and his kind have a certain distribution over 
the surface of the world, comparable in its way to the distribution 
of the human species. What is true of the dog they tell us is 
true of all the higher animals; and they assert that they can lay 
down a common plan for the whole of these creatures, and regard 
the man and the dog, the horse and the ox as minor modificc?tions 
of one great fundamental unity. Moreover, the investigations 



146 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

of the last three-quarters of a century have proved, they tell us, 
that similar inquiries, carried out through all the different kinds 
of animals which are met with in nature, will lead us, not in 
one straight series, but by many roads, step by step, gradation 
by gradation, from man, at the summit, to specks of animated 
jelly at the bottom of the series. So that the idea of Leibnitz, 
and of Bonnet, that animals form a great scale of being, in which 
there are a series of gradations from the most complicated form 
to the lowest and simplest; that idea, though not exactly in the 
form in which it was propounded by those philosophers, turns 
out to be substantially correct. More than this, when biologists 
pursue their investigations into the vegetable world, they find 
that they can, in the same way, follow out the structure of the 
plant, from the most gigantic and complicated trees down through 
a similar series of gradations, until they arrive at specks of ani- 
mated jelly, which they are puzzled to distinguish from those 
specks which they reached by the animal road. 

Thus, biologists have arrived at the conclusion that a funda- 
mjental uniformity of structure pervades the animal and vegetable 
worlds, and that plants and animals differ from one another 
simply as diverse modifications of the same great general plan. 

Again, they tell us the same story in regard to the study of 
function. They admit the large and important interval which, 
at the present time, separates the manifestations of the mental 
faculties observable in the higher forms of mankind, and even 
in the lower forms, such as we know them, from those exhibited 
by other animals; but, at the same time, they tell us that the 
foundations, or rudiments, of almost all the faculties of man 
are to be met with in the lower animals; that there is a unity of 
mental faculty as well as of bodily structure, and that, here 
also, the difference is a difference of degree and not of kind. I 
said " almost all," for a reason. Among the many distinctions 
which have been drawn between the lower creatures and ourselves, 
there is one which is hardly ever insisted on,* but which may be 
very fitly spoken of in a place so largely devoted to Art as that 
in which we are assembled. It is this, that while, among various 
kinds of animals, it is possible to discover traces of all the other 
faculties of man, especially the faculty of mimicry, yet that 
particular form of mimicry which shows itself in the imitation 
of form either by modelling or by drawing, is not to be met with. 
As far as I know, there is no sculpture or modelling, and decidedly 

* I think that my friend, Professor Allman, was the first to draw 
attention to it. 



ON THE STUDY OF BIOLOGY 147 

no-^iainting or drawing, of animal origin. I mention the fact, 
in order that such comfort may be derived therefrom as artists 
may feel inclined to take. 

If what the biologists tell ns is true, it will be needful to get 
rid of our erroneous conceptions of man, and of his place in 
nature, and to substitute right ones for them. But it is impossible 
to form any judgment as to whether the biologists are right or 
wrong, unless we are able to appreciate the nature of the argu- 
ments which they have to offer. 

One would almost think this to be a self-evident proposition. 
I wonder what a scholar would say to the man who should under- 
take to criticise a difficult passage in a Greek play, but who 
obviously had not acquainted himself with the rudiments of 
Greek grammar. And yet, before giving positive opinions about 
these high questions of Biology, people not only do not seem to 
think it necessary to be acquainted with the grammar of the 
subject, but they have not even mastered the alphabet. You 
find criticism and denunciation showered about by persons who 
not only have not attempted to go through the discipline neces- 
sary to enable them to be judges, but who have not even reached 
that stage of emergence from ignorance in which the knowledge 
that such a discipline is necessary dawns upon the mind. I have 
had to watch with some attention — in fact I have been favoured 
with a good deal of it myself — the sort of criticism with which 
biologists and biological teachings are visited. I am told every 
now and then that there is a " brilliant article " * in so-and-so, 
in which we are all demolished. I used to read these things once, 
but I am getting old now, and I have ceased to attend very much 
to this cry of " wolf." When one does read any of these produc- 
tions, what one finds generally, on the face of it is, that the 
brilliant critic is devoid of even the elements of biological knowl- 
edge, and that his brilliancy is like the light given out by the 
crackling of thorns under a pot of which Solomon speaks. So 
far as I recollect, Solomon makes use of the image for purposes 
of comparison; but I will not proceed further into that matter. 

Two things must be obvious: in the first place, that every man 
who has the interests of truth at heart must earnestly desire that 
every well-founded and just criticism that can be made should 
be made; but that, in the second place, it is essential to anybody's 
being able to benefit by criticism, that the critic should know 

* Galileo was troubled by a sort o^ people whom he called " paper 
philosophers," because they fancied that the true reading of nature 
was to be detected by the collation of texts. The race is not extinct, 
but, as of old, brings forth its " winds of doctrine " by which the 
weathercock heads among us are much exercised. 



148 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

what lie is talking about, and be in a position to form a mental 
image of the facts symbolised by the words he uses. If not, it 
is as obvious in the case of a biological argument, as it is in 
that of a historical or philological discussion, that such criticism 
is a mere waste of time on the part of its author, and wholly 
undeserving of attention on the part of those who are criticised. 
Take it then as an illustration of the importance of biological 
study, that thereby alone are men able to form something like a 
rational conception of what constitutes valuable criticism of the 
teachings of biologists.* 

Next, I may mention another bearing of biological knowledge 
— a more practical one in the ordinary sense of the word. Con- 
sider the theory of infectious disease. Surely that is of interest 
to all of us. Now the theory of infectious disease is rapidly 
being elucidated by biological study. It is possible to produce, 
from among the lower animals, examples of devastating diseases 
which spread in the same manner as our infectious disorders, and 
which are certainly unmistakeably caused by living organisms. 
This fact renders it possible, at any rate, that that doctrine of 
the causation of infectious disease which is known under the 
name of " the germ theory " may be well-founded ; and, if so, it 
must needs lead to the most important practical measures in 
dealing with those terrible visitations. It may be well that the 
general, as well as the professional, public should have a, sufficient 
knowledge of biological truths to be able to take a rational interest 
in the discussion of such problems, and to see, what I think they 
may hope to see, that, to those who possess a sufficient elementary 
knowledge of Biology, they are not all quite open questions. 

Let me mention another important practical illustration of the 
value of biological study. Within the last forty years the theory 

* Some critics do not even take the trouble to read. I have recently 
been adjured with much solemnity, to state publicly why I have 
" changed my opinion " as to the value of the palseontological evidence 
of the occurrence of evolution. 

To this my reply is, Why should I, when that statement was made 
seven years ago? An address delivered from the Presidential Chair 
of the Geological Society, in 1870, may be said to be a public document, 
inasmuch as it not only appeared in the Journal of that learned body, 
but was republished, in 1873, in a volume of Critiques and Addresses, 
to which my name is attached. Therein will be found a pretty full 
statement of my reasons for enunciating two propositions: (1) that 
" when we turn to the higher Vertehrata, the results of recent investi- 
gations, however we may sift and criticise them, seem to me to leave 
a clear balance in favour of the evolution of living forms one from 
another;" and (2) that the case of the horse is one which "will stand 
rigorous criticism." 

Thus I do not see clearly in what way I can be said to have changed 
my opinion, except in the way of intensifying it, when in consequence 
of the accumulation of similar evidence since 1870, I recently spoke 
of the denial of evolution as not '\\'orth serious consideration. 



ON THE STUDY OF BIOLOGY 149 

of agriculture has been revolutionised. The researches of Liebig. 
and those of our own Lawes and Gilbert, have had a bearing 
upon that branch of industry the importance of which cannot 
be over-estimated; but the whole of these new views have grown 
out of the better explanation of certain processes which go on 
in plants; and which, of course, form a part of the subject-matter 
of Biology. 

I might go on multiplying these examples, but I see that the 
clock won't wait for me, and I must therefore pass to the third 
question to which I referred : — Granted that Biology is some^ 
thing worth studying, what is the best way of studying it? Here 
I m.ust point out that, since Biology is a physical science, the 
method of studying it must needs be analogous to that which is 
followed in the other physical sciences. It has now long been 
recognised that, if a man wishes to be a chemist, it is not only 
necessary that he should read chemical books and attend chemical 
lectures, but that he should actually perform the fundamental 
experiments in the laboratory for himself, and thus learn exactly 
what the words which he finds in his books and hears from his 
teachers, mean. If he does not do so, he may read till the crack 
of doom, but he will never know much about chemistry. That is 
what every chemist will tell you, and the physicist will do the 
same for his branch of science. The great changes 'and improve- 
ments in physical and chemical scientific education, which have 
taken place of late, have all resulted from, the combination of 
practical teaching with the reading of books and with the hearing 
of lectures. The same thing is true in Biology. Nobody will 
ever know anything about Biology except in dilettante " paper- 
philosopher" way, who contents himself with reading books on 
botany, zoology, and the like; and the reason of this is simple 
and easy to understand. It is that all language is merely sym- 
bolical of the things of which it treats; the more complicated 
the things, the more bare is the symbol, and the more its verbal 
definition requires to be supplemented by the information derived 
directly from the handling, and the seeing, and the touching 
of the thing symbolised: — that is really what is at the bottom 
of the whole matter. It is plain common sense, as all truth, in 
the long run, is only common sense clarified. If you want a 
man to be a tea merchant, you don't tell him to read books about 
China or about tea, but you put him into a tea-merchant's ofiice 
where he has the handling, the smelling, and the tasting of tea. 
Without the sort of knowledge which can be gained only in this 
practical way, his exploits as a tea merchant will soon come to 
a bankrupt termination. The " paper-philosophers " are under 



150 SCIENCE AND EDUCATIOJ^ 

the delusion that physical science can be mastered as literary 
accomplishments are acquired, but unfortunately it is not so. 
You may read any quantity of books, and you may be almost as 
ignorant as you were at starting if you don't have, at the back 
of your minds, the change for words in definite images which 
can only be acquired through the operation of your observing 
faculties on the phenomena of nature. 

It may be said : — " That is all very well, but you told us just 
now that there are probably something like a quarter of a million 
different kinds of living and extinct animals and plants, and a 
human life could not suffice for the examination of one-fiftieth 
part of all these." That is true, but then comes the great con- 
venience of the way things are arranged; which is, that although 
there are these immense numbers of different kinds of living 
things in existence, yet they are built up, after all, upon marvel- 
lously few plans. 

There are certainly more than 100,000 species of insects, and 
yet anybody who knows one insect — if a properly chosen one — 
will be able to have a very fair conception of the structure of 
the whole. I do not mean to say he will know that structure 
thoroughly, or as well as it is desirable he should know it; but 
he will have enough real knowledge to enable him to understand 
what he reads, to have genuine images in his mind of those 
structures which become so variously modified in all the forms 
of insects he has not seen. In fact, there are such things as 
types of form among animals and vegetables, and for the purpose 
of getting a definite knowledge of what constitutes the leading 
modifications of animal and plant life, it is not needful to ex- 
amine more than a comparatively small number of animals and 
plants. 

Let me tell you what we do in the biological laboratory which 
is lodged in a building adjacent to this. There I lecture to a 
class of students daily for about four-and-a-half months, and my 
class have, of course, their text -books; but the essential part of 
the whole teaching, and that which I regard as really the most 
important part of it, is a laboratory for practical work, which 
is simply a room with all the appliances needed for ordinary 
dissection. We have tables properly arranged in regard to light, 
microscopes, and dissecting instruments, and we work through 
the structure of a certain number of animals and plants. As, 
for example, among the plants, we take a yeast plant, a Proto- 
coccus, a common mould, a Chara, a fern, and some flowering 
plant; among animals we examine such things as an Amoeba, a 
Vorticella, and a fresh-water polype. We dissect a star-fish, an 



ON THE STUDY OF BIOLOGY 151 

earth-worm, a snail, a squid, and a fresh-water mussel. We ex- 
amine a lobster and a cray-fish, and a black beetle. We go on to 
a common skate, a cod-fish, a frog, a tortoise, a pigeon, and a 
rabbit, and that takes us about all the time we have to give. 
The purpose of this course is not to make skilled dissectors, but 
to give every student a clear and definite conception, by means 
of sense-images, of the characteristic structure of each of the 
leading modifications of the animal kingdom; and that is per- 
fectly possible, by going no further than the length of that list 
of forms which I have enumerated. If a man knows the structure 
of the animals I have mentioned, he has a clear and exact, how- 
ever limited, apprehension of the essential features of the organi- 
sation of all those great divisions of the animal and vegetable 
kingdoms to which the forms I have mentioned severally belong. 
And it then becomes possible for him to read with profit; because 
every time he meets with the name of a structure, he has a 
definite image in his mind of what the name means in the par- 
ticular creature he is reading about, and therefore the reading 
is not mere reading. It is not mere repetition of words; but 
every term employed in the description, we will say, of a horse, 
or of an elephant, will call up the image of the things he had 
seen in the rabbit, and he is able to form a distinct conception 
of that which he has not seen, as a modification of that which 
he has seen. 

I find this system to yield excellent results; and I have no 
hesitation whatever in saying, that any one who has gone through 
such a course, attentively, is in a better position to form a con- 
ception of the great truths of Biology, especially of morphology 
(which is what we chiefly deal with), than if he had merely read 
all the books on that topic put together. 

The connection of this discourse with the Loan Collection o± 
Scientific Apparatus arises out of the exhibition in that collection 
of certain aids to our laboratory work. Such of you as have 
visited that very interesting collection may have noticed a series 
of diagrams and of preparations illustrating the structure of a 
frog. Those diagrams and preparations have been made for the 
use of the students in the biological laboratory. Similar diagrams 
and preparations illustrating the structure of all the other forms 
of life we examine, are either made or in course of preparation. 
Thus the student has before him, first, a picture of the structure 
he ought to see; secondly, the structure itself worked out; and 
if with these aids, and such needful explanations and practical 
\\ints as a demonstrator can supply, he cannot make out the facts 



152 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

for himself in the materials supplied to him, he had Letter take 
to some other pursuit than that of biological science. 

I should have been glad to have said a few words about the 
use of museums in the study of Biology, but I see that my time 
is becoming short, and I have yet another question to answer. 
Nevertheless, I must, at the risk of wearying you, say a word or 
two upon the important subject of museums. Without doubt 
there are no helps to the study of Biology, or rather to some 
branches of it, which are, or may be, more important than natural 
history museums; but, in order to take this place in regard to 
Biology, they must be museums of the future. The museums of 
the present do not, by any means, do so much for us as they 
might do. I do not wish to particularise, but I dare say many 
of you, seeking knowledge, or in the laudable desire to employ a 
holiday usefully, have visited some great natural history museum. 
You have walked through a quarter of a mile of animals, more 
or less well stuffed, with their long names written out underneath 
them! and, unless your experience is very different from that 
of most people, the upshot of it all is that you leave that splendid 
pile with sore feet, a bad headache, and a general idea that the 
animal kingdom is a " mighty maze without a plan." I do not 
think that a museum which brings about this result does all that 
may be reasonably expected from such an institution. What is 
needed in a collection of natural history is that it should be made 
as accessible and as useful as possible, on the one hand to the 
general public, and on the other to scientific workers. That need 
is not met by constructing a sort of happy hunting-ground of 
miles of glass cases; and, under the pretence of exhibiting every- 
thing putting the maximum amount of obstacle in the way of 
those who wish properly to see anything. 

What the public want is easy and unhindered access to such a 
collection as they can understand and appreciate; and what the 
men of science want is similar access to the materials of science. 
To this end the vast mass of objects of natural history should be 
divided into two parts — one open to the public, the other to 
men of science, every day. The former division should exemplify 
all the more important and interesting forms of life. Explanatory 
tablets should be attached to them, and catalogues containing 
clearly-written popular expositions of the general significance of 
the objects exhibited should be provided. The latter should con- 
tain, packed into a comparatively small space, in rooms adapted 
for working purposes, the objects of purely scientific interest. 
For example, we will say I am an ornithologist. I go to examine 
a collection of birds. It is a positive nuisance to have them 



ON THE STUDY OF BIOLOGY 153 

stuffed. It is not only sheer waste, but I liave to reckon with 
the ideas of the bird-stuffer, while, if I have the skin and nobody 
has interfered with it, I can form my own judgment as to what 
the bird was like. For ornithological purposes, what is needed 
is not glass cases full of stuffed birds on perches, but convenient 
drawers into each of which a great quantity of skins will go. 
They occupy no great space and do not require any expenditure 
beyond their original cost. But for the edification of the public, 
who want to learn indeed, but do not seek for minute and technical 
knowledge, the case is different. What one of the general public 
walking into a collection of birds desires to see is not all the 
birds that can be got together. He does not want to compare a 
hundred species of the sparrow tribe side by side; but he wishes 
to know what a bird is, and what are the great modifications of 
bird structure, and to be able to get at that knowledge easily. 
What will best serve his purpose is a comparatively small number 
of birds carefully selected, and artistically, as well as accurately, 
set up; with their different ages, their nests, their young, their 
eggs, and their skeletons side by side; and in accordance with 
the admirable plan which is pursued in this museum, a tablet, 
telling the spectator in legible characters what they are and what 
they mean. For the instruction and recreation of the public such 
a typical collection would be of far greater value than any many- 
acred imitation of Noah's ark. 

Lastly comes the question as to when biological study may 
best be pursued. I do not see any valid reason why it should 
not be made, to a certain extent, a part of ordinary school train- 
ing. I have long advocated this view, and I am perfectly certain 
that it can be carried out with ease, and not only with ease, but 
with very considerable profit to those who are taught; but then 
such instruction must be adapted to the minds and needs of the 
scholars. They used to have a very odd way of teaching the 
classical languages when I was a boy. The first task set you was 
to learn the rules of the Latin grammar in the Latin language 
— that being the language you were going to learn! I thought 
then that this was an odd way of learning a language, but did 
not venture to rebel against the judgment of my superiors. Now, 
perhaps, I am not so modest as I was then, and I allow myself 
to think that it was a very absurd fashion. But it would be no 
less absurd, if we were to set about teaching Biology by putting 
it into the hands of boys a series of definitions of the classes and 
orders of the animal kingdom, and making them repeat them by 
heart. That is so very favourite a method of teaching, that I 
sometimes fancy the spirit of the old classical system has entered 



154 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

into the new scientific system, in which case I would much rather 
that any pretence at scientific teaching were abolished altogether. 
What really has to be done is to get into the young mind some 
notion of what animal and vegetable life is. In this matter, you 
have to consider practical convenience as well as other things. 
There are difficulties in the way of a lot of boys making messes 
with slugs and snails; it might not work in practice. But there 
is a very convenient and handy animal which everybody has at 
hand, and that is himself; and it is a very easy and simple matter 
to obtain common plants. Hence the general truths of anatomy 
and physiology can be taught to young people in a very real 
fashion by dealing with the broad facts of human structure. 
Such viscera as they cannot very well examine in themselves, 
such as hearts, lungs, and livers, may be obtained from the 
nearest butcher's shop. In respect to teaching something about 
the biology of plants, there is no practical difficulty, because 
almost any of the common plants will do, and plants do not make 
a mess — at least they do not make an unpleasant mess ; so that, 
in my judgment, the best form of Biology for teaching to very 
young people is elementary human physiology on the one hand, 
and the elements of botany on the other; beyond that I do not 
think it will be feasible to advance for some time to come. But 
then I see no reason, why, in secondary schools, and in the 
Science Classes which are under the control of the Science and 
Art Department — and which I may say, in passing, have in my 
judgment, done so very much for the diffusion of a knowledge 
of science over the country — we should not hope to see instruc- 
tion in the elements of Biology carried out, not perhaps to the 
same extent, but still upon somewhat the same principle as here. 
There is no difficulty, when you have to deal with students of 
the ages of fifteen or sixteen, in practising a little dissection 
and in getting a notion of, at any rate, the four or five great 
modifications of the animal form ; and the like is true in regard 
to the higher anatomy of plants. 

While, lastly, to all those who are studying biological science 
with a view to their own edification merely, or with the intention 
of becoming zoologists or botanists; to all those who intend to 
pursue physiology — and especially to those who propose to em- 
ploy the working years of their lives in the practice of medicine 
— I say that there is no training so fitted, or which may be of 
such important service to them, as the discipline in practical 
biological work which I have sketched out as being pursued in 
the laboratory hard by. 



ON THE STUDY OF BIOLOGY 155 

I may add that, beyond all these different classes of persons 
who may profit by the study of Biology, there is yet one other. 
I remember, a number of years ago, that a gentleman who was a 
vehement opponent of Mr. Darwin's views and had written some 
terrible articles against them, applied to me to know what was 
the best way in which he could acquaint himself with the strongest 
arguments in favour of evolution. I wrote back, in all good 
faith and simplicity, recommending him to go through a course 
of comparative anatomy and physiology, and then to study de- 
velopment. I am sorry to say he was very much displeased, as 
people often are with good advice. Notwithstanding this dis- 
couraging result, I venture, as a parting word, to repeat the 
suggestion, and to say to all the more or less acute lay and 
clerical " paper-philosophers " ^' who venture into the regions of 
biological controversy — Get a little sound, thorough, practical, 
elementary instruction in biology. 

* Writers of this stamp are fond of talking about the Baconian 
method. I beg them therefore to lay to heart these two weighty sayings 
of the herald of Modern Science : — 

" Syllogismus ex propositionibus constat, propositiones ex verbis, verba 
notionum tesserae sunt. Itaque si notiones ipsse (id quod basis rei est) 
confusse sint et temere a rebus abstractse, nihil in iis quae superstruuntur 
est firmitudinis." — Novum Organon, ii. 14. 

" Huic autem vanitati nonnulli ex modernis summa levitate ita in- 
dulserunt, ut in primo capitulo Geneseos et in libro Job et aliis scrip- 
turis sacris, philosophiam naturalem fundare conhei sint; inter vivos 
quwrentes mortua." — IMd. 65. 



156 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 



XI. 

ON ELEMENTAEY INSTEUCTION IN PHYSIOLOGY. 

THE chief ground upon which I venture to recommend that the 
teaching of elementary physiology should form an essential 
part of an organised course of instruction in matter per- 
taining to domestic economy, is, that a knowledge of even the ele- 
ments of this subject supplies those conceptions of the constitution 
and mode of action of the living body, and of the nature of health 
and disease, which prepare the mind to receive instruction from 
sanitary science. 

It is, I think, eminently desirable that the hygienist and the 
physician should find something in the public mind to which 
they can appeal; some little stock of universally acknowledged 
truths, which may serve as a foundation for their warnings, and 
predispose towards an intelligent obedience to their recommenda- 
tions. 

Listening to ordinary talk about health, disease, and death, 
one is often led to entertain a doubt whether the speakers believe 
that the course of natural causation runs as smoothly in the 
human body as elsewhere. Indications are too often obvious of 
a strong, though perhaps an unavowed and half unconscious, 
under-current of opinion that the phenomena of life are not only 
widely different, in their superficial characters and in their prac- 
tical importance, from other natural events, but that they do 
not follow in that definite order which characterises the succession 
of all other occurrences, and the statement of which we call a 
law of nature. 

Hence, I think, arises the want of heartiness of belief in the 
value of knowledge respecting the laws of health and disease, 
and of the foresight and care to which knowledge is the essential 
preliminary, w'hich is so often noticeable; and a corresponding 
laxity and carelessness in practice, the results of which are too 
frequently lamentable. 

It is said that among the many religious sects of Russia, there 
is one which holds that all disease is brought about by the direct 
and special interference of the Deity, and which, therefore, looks 



ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION IN PHYSIOLOGY 157 

with repugnance upon both preventive and curative measures as 
alike blasphemous interferences with the will of God. Among 
ourselves, the " Peculiar People " are, I believe, the only persons 
who hold the like doctrine in its integrity, and carry it out with 
logical rigour. But many of us are old enough to recollect that 
the administration of chloroform in assuagement of the pangs 
of childbirth was, at its introduction, strenuously resisted upon 
similar grounds. 

I am not sure that the feeling, of which the doctrine to which 
I have referred is the full expression, does not lie at the bottom 
of the minds of a great many people who yet would vigorously 
object to give a verbal assent to the doctrine itself. However 
this may be, the main point is that sufficient knowledge has now 
been acquired of vital phenomena, to justify the assertion, that 
the notion, that there is anything exceptional about these phe- 
nomena, receives not a particle of support from any known fact. 
On the contrary, there is a vast and an increasing mass of 
evidence that birth and death, health and disease, are as much 
parts of the ordinary stream of events as the rising and setting 
of the sun, or the changes of the moon; and that the living body 
is a mechanism, the proper working of which we term health; 
its disturbance, disease; its stoppage, death. The activity of 
this mechanism is dependent upon many and complicated condi- 
tions, some of which are hopelessly beyond our control, while 
others are readily accessible, and are capable of being indefinitely 
modified by our own actions. The business of the hygienist and 
of the physician is to know the range of these modifiable condi- 
tions, and how to influence them towards the maintenance of 
health and the prolongation of life; the business of the general 
public is to give an intelligent assent, and a ready- obedience 
based upon that assent, to the rules laid down for their guidance 
by such experts. But an intelligent assent is an assent based upon 
knowledge, and the knowledge which is here in question means 
an acquaintance with the elements of physiology. 

It is not difficult to acquire such knowledge. What is true, 
to a certain extent, of all the physical sciences, is eminently 
characteristic of physiology — the difficulty of the subject begins 
beyond the stage of elementary knowledge, and increases with 
every stage of progress. While the most highly trained and the 
best furnished intellect may find all its resources insufficient, 
when it strives to reach the heights and penetrate into the depths 
of the problems of physiology, the elementary and fundamental 
truths can be made clear to a child. 

ISTo one can have any difficulty in comprehending the mechanism. 



158 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

of circulation or respiration; or tlie general mode of operation 
of tlie organ of vision; though the unravelling of all the minutiae 
of these processes, may, for the present, baffle the conjoined 
attacks of the most accomplished physicists, chemists, and mathe- 
maticians. To know the anatomy of the human body, with even 
an approximation to thoroughness, is the work of a life; but as 
much as is needed for a sound comprehension of elementary 
physiological truths, may be learned in a week. 

A knowledge of the elements of physiology is not only easy 
of acquirement, but it may be made a real and practical acquaint- 
ance with the facts, as far as it goes. The subject of study is 
always at hand, in one's self. The principal constituents of the 
skeleton, and the changes of form of contracting muscles, may 
be felt through one's own skin. The beating of one's heart, and 
its connection with the pulse, may be noted; the influence of the 
valves of one's own veins may be shown ; the movements of 
respiration may be observed; while the wonderful phenomena of 
sensation afford an endless field for curious and interesting self- 
study. The prick of a needle will yield, in a drop of one's own 
blood, material for microscopic observation of phenomena which 
lie at the foundation of all biological conceptions; and a cold, 
with its concomitant coughing and sneezing, may prove the sweet 
uses of adversity by helping one to a clear conception of what 
is meant by " reflex action." 

Of course there is a limit to this physiological self-examination. 
But there is so close a solidarity between ourselves and our poor 
relations of the animal world, that our inaccessible inward parts 
may be supplemented by theirs. A comparative anatomist knows 
that a sheep's heart and lungs, or eye, must not be confounded 
with those of a man; but, so far as the comprehension of the 
elementary facts of the physiology of circulation, of respiration, 
and of vision goes, the one furnishes the needful anatomical data 
as well as the other. 

Thus, it is quite possible to give instruction in elementary 
physiology in such a manner as, not only to confer knowledge, 
which, for the reason I have mentioned, is useful in itself; but 
to serve the purposes of a training in accurate observation, and 
in the methods of reasoning of physical science. But that is an 
advantage which I mention only incidentally, as the present Con- 
ference does not deal with education in the ordinary sense of 
the word. 

It will not be suspected that I wish to make physiologists of 
all the world. It would be as reasonable to accuse an advocate 
of the " three R's " of a desire to make an orator, an author, and 



ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION IN PHYSIOLOGY 159 

a mathematician of everybody. A stum.bling reader, a pot-hook 
writer, and an arithmetician who has not got beyond the rule of 
three, is not a person of brilliant acquirements; but the difference 
between such a member of society and one who can neither read, 
write, nor cipher is almost inexpressible; and no one nowadays 
doubts the value of instruction, even if it goes no farther. 

The saying that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing is, to 
my mind, a very dangerous adage. If knowledge is real and 
genuine, I do not believe that it is other than a very valuable 
possession, however infinitesimal its quantity may be. Indeed, if 
a little knowledge is dangerous, where is the man who has so 
much as to be out of danger? 

If William Harvey's life-long labours had revealed to him a 
tenth part of that which may be made sound and real knowledge 
to our boys and girls, he would not only have been what he was, 
the greatest physiologist of his age, but he would have loomed 
upon the seventeenth century as a sort of intellectual portent. 
Our " little knowledge " would have been to him a great, astound- 
ing, unlooked-for vision of scientific truth. 

I really see no harm which can come of giving our children a 
little knowledge of physiology. But then, as I have said, the 
instruction must be real, based upon observation, eked out by 
good explanatory diagrams and models, and conveyed by a teacher 
whose own. knowledge has been acquired by a study of the facts; 
and not the mere catechismal parrot-work which too often usurps 
the place of elementary teaching. 

It is, I hope, unnecessary for me to give a formal contradiction 
to the silly fiction, which is assiduously circulated by fanatics 
who not only ought to know, but do know, that their assertions 
are untrue, that I have advocated the introduction of that ex- 
perimental discipline which is absolutely indispensable to the 
professed physiologist, into elementary teaching. 

But while I should object to any experimentation which can 
justly be called painful, for the purpose of elementary instruc- 
tion; and, while, as a member of the late Koyal Commission, I 
gladly did my best to prevent the infliction of needless pain, for 
any purpose; I think it is my duty to take this opportunity of 
expressing my regret at a condition of the law which permits 
a boy to troll for pike, or set lines with live-frog bait, for idle 
amusement; and, at the same time, lays the teacher of that boy 
open to the penalty of fine and imprisonment, if he uses the 
same animal for the purpose of exhibiting one of the most beauti- 
ful and instructive of physiological spectacles, the circulation 
in the web of the foot. No one could undertake to affirm that 



160 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

a frog is not inconvenienced by being wrapped up in a wet rag, 
and having his toes tied out; and it cannot be denied that incon- 
venience is a sort of pain. But you must not inflict the least 
pain on a vertebrated animal for scientific purposes (though you 
may do a good deal in that way for gain or for sport) without 
due licence of tiie Secretary of State for the Home Department, 
granted under the authority of the Vivisection Act. 

So it comes about, that, in this present year of grace 187T, 
two persons may be charged with cruelty to animals. One has 
impaled a frog, and suffered the creature to writhe about in that 
condition for hours ; the other has pained the animal no more 
than one of us would be pained by tying strings round his fingers, 
and keeping him in the position of a hydropathic patient. The 
first offender says " I did it because I find fishing very amusing," 
and the magistrate bids him depart in peace; nay, probably 
wishes him good sport. The second pleads, " I wanted to impress 
a scientific truth, with a distinctness attainable in no other way, 
on the minds of my scholars," and the magistrate fines him five 
pounds. 

I cannot but think that this is an anomalous and not wholly 
creditable state of things. 



ON MEDICAL EDUCATION 161 



XII. 

ON MEDICAL EDUCATION * 

IT has given me sincere pleasure to be here to-day, at the desire 
of your highly respected President and the Council of the Col- 
lege. In looking back upon my own past, I am sorry to say 
that I have found that it is a quarter of a century since I took part 
in those hopes and in those fears by which you have all recently 
been agitated, and which now are at an end. But, although so 
long a time has elapsed since I was moved by the same feelings, 
I beg leave to assure you that my sympathy with both victors 
and vanquished remains fresh — so fresh, indeed, that I could 
almost try to persuade myself that, after all, it cannot be so very 
long ago. My business during the last hour, however, has been 
to show that sympathy with one side only, and I assure you I 
have done my best to play my part heartily, and to rejoice in the 
success of those who have succeeded. Still, I should like to 
remind you at the end of it all, that success on an occasion of 
this kind, valuable and important as it is, is in reality only 
putting the foot upon one rung of the ladder which leads upwards ; 
and that the rung of a ladder was never meant to rest upon, but 
only to hold a man's foot long enough to enable him to put the 
other somewhat higher. I trust that you will all regard these 
successes as simply reminders that your next business is, having 
enjoyed the success of the day, no longer to look at that success, 
but to look forward to the next difficulty that is to be conquered. 
And now, having had so much to say to the successful candidates, 
you must forgive me if I add that a sort of undercurrent of 
sympathy has been going on in my mind all the time for those 
who have not been successful, for those valiant knights who have 
been overthrown in your tourney, and have not made their ap- 
pearance in public. I trust that, in accordance with old custom, 
they, wounded and bleeding, have been carried off to their tents, 
to be carefully tended by the fairest of maidens; and in these 
days, when the chances are that every one of such maidens will 
be a qualified practitioner, I have no doubt that all the splinters 

* Address to the students .of the Faculty of Medicine, University, 
.College, London. 



162 SCIENCE AKD EDUCATION 

will have been carefully extracted, and that they are now physi- 
cally healed. But there may remain some little fragment of moral 
Or intellectual discouragement, and therefore I will take the 
liberty to remark that your chairman to-day, if he occupied his 
proper place, would be among thenu Your chairman, in virtue 
of his position, and for the brief hour that he occupies that 
position, is a person of importance; and it may be some consola- 
tion to those who have failed if I say, that the quarter of a 
century which I have been speaking of, takes me back to the 
time when I was up at the University of London, a candidate 
for honours in anatomy and physiology, and when I was exceed- 
ingly well beaten by my excellent friend, Dr. Kansom, of Not- 
tingham. There is a person here who recollects that circumstance 
very well. I refer to your venerated teacher and mine. Dr. 
Sharpey. He was at that time one of the examiners in anatomy 
and physiology, and you may be quite sure that, as he was one 
of the examiners, there remained not the smallest doubt in my 
mind of the propriety of his judgment, and I accepted my defeat 
with the most comfortable assurance that I had thoroughly well 
earned it. But, gentlemen, the competitor having been a worthy 
one, and the examination a fair one, I cannot say that I found 
in that circumstance anything very discouraging. I said to my- 
self, " Never mind ; what's the next thing to be done ?" And I 
found that policy of "never minding" and going on to the next 
thing to be done, to be the most important of all policies in the 
conduct of practical life. It does not matter how many tumbles 
you have in this life, so long as you do not get dirty when you 
tumble; it is only the people who have to stop to be washed and 
made clean, who must necessarily lose the race. And I can assure 
you that there is the greatest practical benefit in making a few 
failures early in life. You learn that which is of inestimable 
importance — that there are a great many people in the world 
who are just as clever as you are. You learn to put your trust, 
by and by, in an economy and frugality of the exercise of your 
powers, both moral and intellectual; and you very soon find out, 
if you have not found it out before, that patience and tenacity 
of purpose are worth more than twice their weight of cleverness. 
In fact, if I were to go on discoursing on this subject, I should 
become almost eloquent in praise of non-success ; but, lest so doing 
should seem, in any way, to wither well-earned laurels, I will 
turn from that topic, and ask you to accompany me in some con- 
siderations touching another subject which has a very profound 
interest for me, and which I think ought to have an equally 
profound interest for you. 



ON MEDICAL EDUCATION 163 

I presume that tHe great majority of those whora I address 
propose to devote themselves to the profession of medicine; and 
I do not doubt, from the evidences of ability which have been 
given to-day, that I have before me a number of men who will 
rise to eminence in that profession, and who will exert a great 
and deserved influence upon its future. That in which I am 
interested, and about which I wish to speak, is the subject of 
medical education, and I venture to speak about it for the pur- 
pose, if I can, of influencing you, who may have the power of 
influencing the medical education of the future. You may ask, 
by what authority do I venture, being a person not concerned 
in the practice of medicine, to meddle with that subject? I can 
only tell you it is a fact, of which a number of you I dare say 
are aware by experience (and I trust the experience has no painful 
associations), that I have been for a considerable number of years 
(twelve or thirteen years at the best of my recollection) one of 
the examiners in the University of London. You are further 
aware that the men who come up to the University of London 
are the picked men of the medical schools of London, and there- 
fore such observations as I may have to make upon the state of 
knowledge of these gentlemen, if they be justified, in regard to 
any faults I may have to find, cannot be held to indicate defects 
in the capacity, or in the power of application of those gentlemen, 
but must be laid, more or less, to the account of the prevalent 
system of medical education. I will tell you what has struck me 
— but in speaking in this frank way, as one always does about 
the defects of one^s friends, I must beg you to disabuse your 
minds of the notion that I am alluding to any particular school, 
or to any particular college, or to any particular person; and to 
believe that if I am silent when I should be glad to speak with 
high praise, it is because that praise would come too close to this 
locality. What has struck me, then, in this long experience of 
the men best instructed in physiology from the medical schools 
of London is (with the many and brilliant exceptions to which I 
have referred), taking it as a whole, and broadly, the singular 
unreality of their knowledge of physiology. Now, I use that word 
" unreality " advisedly : I do not say " scanty ;" on the contrary, 
there is plenty of it — a great deal too much of it — but it is 
the quality, the nature of the knowledge, which I quarrel with. 
I know I used to have — I don't know whether I have now, but I 
had once upon a time — a bad reputation among students for 
setting up a very high standard of acquirement, and I dare say 
you may think that the standard of this old examiner, who happily 
is now very nearly an extinct examiner, has been pitched too high. 



164 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

Nothing of the kind, I assure you. The defects I have noticed, and 
the faults I have to find, arise entirely from the circumstance that 
my standard is pitched too low. This is no paradox, gentlemen, 
but quite simply the fact. The knowledge I have looked for was 
a real, precise, thorough, and practical knowledge of fundamen- 
tals ; whereas that which the best of the candidates, in a large pro- 
portion of cases, have had to give me was a large, extensive, and 
inaccurate knowledge of superstructure; and that is what I mean 
by saying that my demands went too low and not too high. What 
I have had to complain of is, that a large proportion of the gen- 
tlemen who come up for physiology to the University of London 
do not know it as they know their anatomy, and have not been 
taught it as they have been taught their anatomy. Now, I should 
not wonder at all if I heard a great many " No, noes " here ; but 
I am not talking about University College; as I have told you 
before, I am talking about the average education of medical 
schools. What I have found, and found so much reason to lament, 
is, that while anatomy has been taught as a science ought to be 
taught, as a matter of autopsy, and observation, and strict dis- 
cipline; in a very large number of cases, physiology has been 
taught as if it were a mere matter of books and of hearsay. I 
declare to you, gentlemen, that I have often expected to be told, 
when I have asked a question about the circulation of the blood, 
that Professor Breitkopf is of opinion that it circulates, but that 
the whole thing is an open question. I assure you that I am 
hardly exaggerating the state of mind on matters of fundamental 
importance which I have found over and over again to obtain 
among gentlemen coming up to that picked examination of the 
University of London. Now, I do not think that is a desirable 
state of things. I cannot understand why physiology should not 
be taught — in fact, you have here abundant evidence that it can 
be taught — with the same definiteness and the same precision as 
anatomy is taught. And you may depend upon this, that the 
only physiology which is to be of any good whatever in medical 
practice, or in its application to the study of medicine, is that 
physiology which a man knows of his own knowledge; just as the 
only anatomy which would be of any good to the surgeon is the 
anatomy which he knows of his own knowledge. Another pe- 
culiarity I have found in the physiology which has been current, 
and that is, that in the minds of a great many gentlemen it has 
been supplanted by histology. They have learnt a great deal of 
histology, and they have fancied that histology and physiology are 
the same things. I have asked for some knowledge of the physics 
and the mechanics and the chemistry of the human body, and I 



ON MEDICAL EDUCATION 165 

have been met by talk about cells. I declare to you I believe it 
will take me two years, at least, of absolute rest from the business 
of an examiner to hear the word '"" cell," " germinal matter," or 
" carmine," without a sort of inward shudder. 

Well, now, gentlemen, I am sure my colleagues in this examina- 
tion will bear me out in saying that I have not been exaggerating 
the evils and defects which are current — have been current — in 
a large quantity of the physiological teaching the results of which 
come before examiners. And it becomes a very interesting ques- 
tion to know how all this comes about, and in what way it can 
be remedied. How it comes about will be perfectly obvious to 
any one who has considered the growth of medicine. I suppose 
that medicine and surgery first began by some savage more intel- 
ligent than the rest, discovering that a certain herb was good for 
a certain pain, and that a certain pull, somehow or other, set a 
dislocated joint right. I suppose all things had their humble be- 
ginnings, and medicine and surgery were in the same condition. 
People who wear watches know nothing about watchmaking. A 
watch goes wrong and it stops; you see the owner giving it a 
shake, or, if he is very bold, he opens the case, and gives the bal- 
ance-wheel a push. Gentlemen, that is empirical practice, and you 
know what are the results upon the watch. I should think you 
can divine what are the results of analogous operations upon the 
huraan body. And because men of sense very soon found that 
such were the effects of meddling with very complicated machin- 
ery they did not Understand, I suppose the first thing, as being the 
easiest, was to study the nature of the works of the human watch, 
and the next thing was to study the way the parts worked to- 
gether, and the way the watch worked. Thus, by degrees, we have 
had growing up our body of anatomists, or knowers of the con- 
struction of the human watch, and our physiologists, who know 
how the machine works. And just as any sensible man, who has a 
valuable watch, does not meddle with it himself, but goes to some 
one who has studied watchmaking, and understands what the 
effect of doing this or that may be; so, I suppose, the man who, 
having charge of that valuable machine, his own body, wants to 
have it kept in good order, comes to a professor of the medical 
art for the purpose of having it set right, believing that, by 
deduction from the facts of structure and from the facts of func- 
tion, the physician will divine what may be the matter with his 
bodily watch at that particular time, and what may be the best 
means of setting it right. If that may be taken as a just represen- 
tation of the relation of the theoretical branches of medicine — ■ 
what we may call the institutes of medicine, to use an old term — ■ 



166 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

to the practical branches, I think it will be obvious to you that 
they are of prime and fundamental importance. Whatever tends 
to affect the teaching of them injuriously must tend to destroy 
and to disorganise the whole fabric of the medical art. I think 
every sensible man has seen this long ago; but the difficulties in 
the way of attaining good teaching in the different branches of the 
theory, or institutes, of medicine are very serious. It is a com- 
paratively easy matter — pray mark that I use the word "com- 
paratively " — it is a comparatively easy matter to learn anatomy 
and to teach it. It is a very difficult matter to learn physiology 
and to teach it. It is a very difficult matter to know and 
to teach those branches of physics and those branches of chemistry 
which bear directly upon physiology; and hence it is that, as a 
matter of fact, the teaching of physiology, and the teaching of the 
physics and the chemistry which bear upon it, must necessarily be 
in a state of relative imperfection; and there is nothing to be 
grumbled at in the fact that this relative imperfection exists. But 
is the relative imperfection which exists only such as is necessary, 
or is it made worse by our practical arrangements ? I believe — 
and if I did not so believe I should not have troubled you with 
these observations — I believe it is made infinitely worse by our 
practical arrangements, or rather, I ought to say, our very unprac- 
tical arrangements. Some very wise man long ago affirmed that 
every question, in the long run, was a question of finance ; and there 
is a good deal to be said for that view. Most assuredly the question 
of medical teaching is, in a very large and broad sense, a question 
of finance. What I mean is this: that in London the arrange- 
ments of the medical schools, and the number of them, are such as 
to render it almost impossible that men who confine themselves 
to the teaching of the theoretical branches of the profession should 
be able to make their bread by that operation; and, you know, if a 
man cannot make his bread he cannot teach — at least Jiis teach- 
ing comes to a speedy end. That is a matter of physiology. 
Anatomy is fairly well taught, because it lies in the direction of 
practice, and a man is all the better surgeon for being a good 
anatomist. It does not absolutely interfere with the pursuits of a 
practical surgeon if he should hold a Chair of Anatomy — though 
I do not for one moment say that he would not be a better teacher 
if he did not devote himself to practice. (Applause.) Yes, I 
know exactly what that cheer means, but I am keeping as care- 
fully as possible from any sort of allusion to Professor Ellis. But 
the fact is, that even human anatomy has now grown to be so large 
a matter, that it takes the whole devotion of a man's life to put the 
great mass of knowledge upon that subject into such a shape that 



ON MEDICAL EDUCATION 167 

it can be teachable to the mind of the ordinary student. What 
the student wants in a professor is a man who shall stand between 
him and the infinite diversity and variety of human knowledge, 
and who shall gather all that together, and extract from it that 
which is capable of being assimilated by the mind. That func- 
tion is a vast and an important one, and unless, in such sub- 
jects as anatomy, a man is wholly free from other cares, it is 
almost impossible that he can perform it thoroughly and well. 
But if it be hardly possible for a man to pursue anatomy without 
actually breaking with his profession, how is it possible for him 
to pursue physiology? 

I get every year those very elaborate reports of Henle and Meiss- 
ner — volumes of, I suppose, 400 pages altogether — and they con- 
sist merely of abstracts of the memoirs and works which have 
been written on Anatomy and Physiology — only abstracts of 
them! How is a man to keep up his acquaintance with all that 
is doing in the physiological world — in a world advancing with 
enormous strides every day and every hour — if he has to be dis- 
tracted with the cares of practice? You know very well it must 
be impracticable to do so. Our men of ability join our medical 
schools with an eye to the future. They take the Chairs of 
Anatomy or of Physiology; and by and by they leave those Chairs 
for the more profitable pursuits into which they have drifted by 
professional success, and so they become clothed, and physiology 
is bare. The result is, that in those schools in which physiology is 
thus left to the benevolence, so to speak, of those who have no 
time to look to it, the effect of such teaching comes out obviously, 
and is made manifest in what I spoke of just now — the unreality, 
the bookishness of the knowledge of the taught. And if this 
is the case in physiology, still more must it be the case in those 
branches of physics which are the foundation of physiology; al- 
though it may be less the case in chemistry, because for an able 
chemist a certain honourable and independent career lies in the 
direction of his work, and he is able, like the anatomist, to look 
upon what he may teach to the student as not absolutely taking 
him away from his bread-winning pursuits. 

But it is of no use to grumble about this state of things unless 
one is prepared to indicate some sort of practical remedy. And 
I believe — and I venture to make the statement because I am 
wholly independent of all sorts of medical schools, and may, there- 
fore, say what I believe without being supposed to be affected by 
any personal interest — but I say I believe that the remedy for 
this state of things, for that imperfection of our theoretical knowl- 
edge which keeps down the ability of England at the present time 



1G8 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

in medical matters, is a m.ere affair of m.ec]aaiiical arrangem.ent ; 
that so long as you liave a dozen medical scliools scattered abont 
in different parts of the metropolis, and dividing the students 
among them, so long, in all the smaller schools at any rate, it is 
impossible that any other state of things than that which I have 
been depicting should obtain. Professors must live; to live they 
must occupy themselves with practice, and if they occupy them- 
selves with practice, the pursuit of the abstract branches of science 
m.ust go to the wall. All this is a plain and obvious matter of 
common-sense reasoning. I believe you will never alter this state 
of things until, either by consent or by force majeure — and I 
should be very sorry to see the latter applied — ^but until there 
is some new arrangement, and until all the theoretical branches 
of the profession, the institutes of medicine, are taught in Lon- 
don in not more than one or two, or at the outside three, central 
institutions, no good will be effected. If that large body of men, 
the medical students of London, were obliged in the first place to 
get a knowledge of the theoretical branches of their profession in 
two or three central schools, there would be abundant means for 
maintaining able professors — not, indeed, for enriching them, 
as they would be able to enrich themselves by practice- — but for 
enabling them to make that choice which such men are so willing 
to make; namely, the choice between wealth and a modest com- 
petency, when that modest competency is to be combined with a 
scientific career, and the means of advancing knowledge. I do 
not believe that all the talking about, and tinkering of, medical 
education will do the slighest good until the fact is clearly recog- 
nised, that men must be thoroughly grounded in the theoretical 
branches of their profession, and that to this end the teaching of 
'those theoretical branches must be confined to two or three centres. 
Now let me add one other word, and that is, that if I were a 
despot, I would cut down these branches to a very considerable 
extent. The next thing to be done beyond that which I mentioned 
just now, is to go back to primary education. The great step to- 
wards a thorough medical education is to insist upon the teaching 
of the elements of the physical sciences in all schools, so that medi- 
cal students shall not go up to the medical colleges utterly igno- 
rant of that with which they have to deal ; to insist on the elements 
of chemistry, the elements of botany, and the elements of physics 
being taught in our ordinary and common schools, so that there 
shall be some preparation for the discipline of medical colleges. 
And, if this reform were once effected, you might confine the 
"Institutes of Medicine" to physics as applied to physiology — to 
chemistry as applied to physiology — to physiology itself, and to 



ON MEDICAL EDUCATION 169 

anatomy. Afterwards, tlie student, thoroughly grounded in these 
matters, might go to any hospital he pleased for the purpose of 
studying the practical branches of his profession. The practical 
teaching might be made as local as you like; and you might use 
to advantage the opportunities afforded by all these local institu- 
tions for acquiring a knowledge of the practice of the profession. 
But you may say : " This is abolishing a great deal ; you are get- 
ting rid of botany and zoology to begin with." I have not a doubt 
that they ought to be got rid of, as branches of special medical 
education ; they ought to be put back to an earlier stage, and made 
branches of general education. Let me say, by way of self- 
denying ordinance, for which you will, I am sure, give me credit, 
that I believe that comparative anatomy ought to be absolutely 
abolished. I say so, not without a certain fear of the Vice- 
Chancellor of the University of London who sits upon my left. 
But I do not think the charter gives him very much power over 
me; moreover, I shall soon come to an end of my examinership, 
and therefore, I am not afraid, but shall go on to say what I was 
going to say, and that is, that in my belief it is a downright 
cruelty — I have no other word for it — to require from gentlemen 
who are engaged in medical studies, the pretence — for it is noth- 
ing else, and can be nothing else, than a pretence — of a knowl- 
edge of comparative anatomy as part of their medical curriculum. 
Make it part of their Arts teaching if you like, make it part of 
their general education if you like, make it part of their qualifi- 
cation for the scientific degree by all means — that is its proper 
place; but to require that gentlemen whose whole faculties should 
be bent upon the acquirement of. a real knowledge of human 
physiology should worry themselves with getting up hearsay about 
the alternation of generations in the Salpse is really monstrous. I 
cannot characterise it in any other way. And having sacrificed 
my own pursuit, I am sure I may sacrifice other people's; and I 
make this remark with all the more willingness because I dis- 
covered, on reading the names of your Professors just now, that 
the Professor of Materia Medica is not present. I must confess, 
if I had my way I should abolish Materia Medica''^ altogether. I 
recollect, when I was first under examination at the University 
of London, Dr. Pereira was the examiner, and you know that 
Pereira's " Materia Medica " was a book de omnibus rebus, I 
recollect my struggles with that book late at night and early in 
the morning (I worked very hard in those days), and I do believe 
that I got that book into my head somehow or other, but then I 

* It will, I hope, be understood that I do not mclude Therapeutics 
under this head. 



170 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

will undertake to say that I forgot it all a week afterwards. Not 
one trace of a knowledge of drugs has remained in my memory 
from that time to this; and really, as a matter of common sense, 
I cannot understand the arguments for obliging a medical man 
to know all about drugs and where they come from. Why not 
make him belong to the Iron and Steel Institute, and learn some- 
thing about cutlery, because he uses knives? 

But do not suppose that, after all these deductions, there would 
not be ample room for your activity. Let us count up what we 
have left. I suppose all. the time for medical education that can 
be hoped for is, at the outside, about four years. Well, what have 
you to master in those four years upon my supposition? Physics 
applied to physiology; chemistry applied to physiology; physiol- 
ogy; anatomy; surgery; medicine (including therapeutics); 
obstetrics; hygiene; and medical jurisprudence — nine subjects 
for four years! And when you consider what those subjects are, 
and that the acquisition of anything beyond the rudiments of any 
one of them may tax the energies of a lifetime, I think that even 
those energies which you young gentlemen have been displaying 
for the last hour or two might be taxed to keep you thoroughly up 
to what is wanted for your medical career. 

I entertain a very strong conviction that any one who adds to 
medical education one iota or tittle beyond what is absolutely 
necessary, is guilty of a very grave offence. Gentlemen, it will de- 
pend upon the knowledge that you happen to possess, — upon your 
means of applying it within your own field of action, — whether 
the bills of mortality in your district are increased or diminished; 
and that, gentlemen, is a very serious consideration indeed. And, 
under those circumstances, the subjects with which you have to 
deal being so difficult, their extent so enormous, and the time at 
your disposal so limited, I could not feel my conscience easy if I 
did not, on such an occasion as this, raise a protest against employ- 
ing your energies upon the acquisition of any knowledge which 
may not be absolutely needed in your future career. 



THE STATE AND THE MEDICAL PROFESSION 171 



xni. 

THE STATE AND THE MEDICAL PEOFESSION. 

AT intervals during the last quarter of a century committees 
of the Houses of the Legislature and specially appointed 
commissions have occupied themselves with the affairs of 
the medical profession. Much evidence has been taken, much 
wrangling has gone on over the reports of these bodies; and 
sometimes much trouble has been taken to get measures based 
upon all this work through Parliament, but very little has been 
achieved. 

The Bill introduced last session was not more fortunate than 
several predecessors. I suppose that it is not right to rejoice in 
the misfortunes of anything, even a Bill; but I confess that this 
event afforded me lively satisfaction, for I was a member of the 
Eoyal Commission on the report of which the Bill was founded, 
and I did my best to oppose and nullify that report. 

That the question must be taken up again and finally dealt 
with by the Legislature before long cannot be doubted; but in the 
meanwhile there is time for reflection, and I think that the non- 
medical public would be wise if they paid a little attention to a 
subject which is really of considerable importance to them. 

The first question which a plain man is disposed to ask himself 
is. Why should the State interfere with the profession of medi- 
cine any more than it does, say, with the profession of engineer- 
ing? Anybody who pleases may call himself an engineer, and 
may practice as such. The State confers no title upon engi- 
neers, and does not profess to tell the public that one man is a 
qualified engineer and that another is not so. 

The answers which are given to the question are various, and 
most of them, I think, are bad. A large number of persons seem 
to be of opinion that the State is bound no less to take care 
of the general public, than to see that it is protected against in- 
competent persons, against quacks and medical impostors in gen- 
eral. I do not take that view of the case. I think it is very 
much wholesomer for the public to take care of itself in this as 
in all other matters ; and although I am not such a fanatic for the 
liberty of the subject as to plead that interfering with the way in 



172 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

which a man may choose to be killed is a violation of that liberty, 
yet I do think that it is far better to let everybody do as he likes. 
Whether that be so or not, I am perfectly certain that, as a mat- 
ter of practice, it is absolutely impossible to prohibit the practice 
of medicine by people who have no special qualification for it. 
Consider the terrible consequences of attempting to prohibit prac- 
tice by a very large class of persons who are certainly not tech- 
nically qualified — I am far from saying a word as to whether they 
are otherwise qualified or not. The number of Ladies Bountiful 
• — grandmothers, aunts, and mothers-in-law — whose chief delight 
lies in the administration of their cherished provision of domestic 
medicine, is past computation, and one shudders to think of what 
might happen if their energies were turned from this innocuous, 
if not beneficent, channel, by the strong arm of the law. But the 
thing is impracticable. 

Another reason for intervention is propounded, I am sorry to 
say, by some, though not many, members of the medical profession, 
and is simply an expression of that trades unionism which tends 
to infest professions no less than trades. 

The general practitioner trying to make both ends meet on a 
poor practice, whose medical training has cost him a good deal 
of time and money, finds that many potential patients, whose 
small fees would be welcome as the little that helps, prefer to go 
and get their shilling's worth of " doctor's stuff " and advice from 
the chemist and druggist round the corner, who has not paid 
sixpence for his medical training, because he has never had any. 

The general practitioner thinks this is very hard upon him and 
ought to be stopped. It is perhaps natural that he should think 
so, though it would be very difficult for him to justify his opinion 
on any ground of public policy. But the question is really not 
worth discussion, as it is obvious that it would be utterly im- 
practicable to stop the practice " over the counter " even if it were 
desirable. 

Is a man who has a sudden attack of pain in tooth or stomach 
not to be permitted to go to the nearest druggist's shop and ask 
for something that will relieve him? The notion is preposterous. 
But if this is to be legal, the whole principle of the permissibility 
of counter practice is granted. 

In my judgment the intervention of the State in the affairs of 
the medical profession can be justified not upon any pretence of 
protecting the public, and still less upon that of protecting the 
medical profession, but simply and solely upon the fact that the 
State employs medical men for certain purposes, and, as employer, 
has a right to define the conditions on which it will accept service. 



THE STATE AND THE MEDICAL PROFESSION 173 

It is for the interest of the community that no person shall die 
without there being some official recognition of the cause of his 
death. It is a matter of the highest importance to the community 
that, in civil and criminal cases, the law shall be able to have 
recourse to persons whose evidence may be taken as that of ex- 
perts ; and it will not be doubted that the State has a right to dic- 
tate the conditions under which it will appoint persons to the vast 
number of naval, military, and civil medical offices held directly 
or indirectly under the Government. Here, and here only, it 
appears to me, lies the justification for the intervention of the 
State in medical affairs. It says, or, in my judgment, should say, 
to the public, " Practice medicine if you like — go to be practised 
upon by anybody ;" and to the medical practitioner, " Have a 
qualification, or do not have a qualification, if people don't mind 
it; but if the State is to receive your certificate of death, if 
the State is to take your evidence as that of an expert, if the 
State is to give you any kind of civil, or military, or naval 
appointment, then we can call upon you to comply with our con- 
ditions, and to produce evidence that you are, in our sense of the 
word, qualified. Without that we will not place you in that 
position." As a matter of fact, that is the relation of the State 
to the medical profession in this country. For my part, I think 
it an extremely healthy relation; and it is one that I should be 
very sorry to see altered, except in so far that it would certainly 
be better if greater facilities were given for the swift and sharp 
punishment of those who profess to have the State qualification 
when, in point of fact, they do not possess it. They are simply 
cheats and swindlers, like other people who profess to be what 
they are not, and should be punished as such. 

But supposing we are agreed about the justification of State 
intervention in medical affairs, new questions arise as to the 
manner in which that intervention should take place and the 
extent to which it should go, on which the divergence of opinion 
is even greater than it is on the general question of interven- 
tion. 

It is now, I am sorry to say, something over forty years since 
I began my medical studies; and, at that time the state of affairs 
was extremely singular. I should think it hardly possible that it 
could have obtained anywhere but in such a country as Eng- 
land, which cherishes a fine old crusted abuse as much as it does 
its port wine. At that time there were twenty-one licensing 
bodies — that is to say, bodies whose certificate was received by the 
State as evidence that the persons who possessed that certificate 
were medical experts. How these bodies came to possess these 



174 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

powers is a very curious chapter in history, in which it would be 
out of place to enlarge. They were partly universities, partly 
medical guilds and corporations, partly the Archbishop of Canter- 
bury. Those were the three sources from which the licence to 
practice came in that day. There was no central authority, there 
was nothing to prevent any one of those licensing authorities from 
granting a licence to any one upon any conditions it thought fit. 
The examination might be a sham, the curriculum might be a 
sham, the certificate might be bought and sold like anything in a 
shop; or, on the other hand, the examination might be fairly good 
and the diploma correspondingly valuable; but there was not the 
smallest guarantee, except the personal character of the people 
who composed the administration of each of these licensing bodies, 
as to what might happen. It was possible for a young man to 
come to London and to spend two years and six months of the 
time in his compulsory three years " walking the hospitals " in 
idleness or worse; he could then, by putting himself in the hands 
of a judicious " grinder " for the remaining six months, pass tri- 
umphantly through the ordeal of one hour's viva voce examination, 
which was all that was absolutely necessary, to enable him to be 
turned loose upon the public, like death on the pale horse, " con- 
quering and to conquer," with the full sanction of the law, as a 
'' qualified practitioner." 

It is difficult to imagine, at present, such a state of things, still 
more difficult to depict the consequences of it, because they would 
appear like a gross and malignant caricature; but it may be said 
that there was never a system, or want of system, which was 
better calculated to ruin the students who came under it, or to 
degrade the profession as a whole. My memory goes back to a 
time when models from whom the Bob Sawyer of the Pickwick 
Papers might have been drawn were anything but rare. 

Shortly before my student days, however, the dawn of a better 
state of things in England began to be visible, in consequence of 
the establishment of the University of London, and the compara- 
tively very high standard which it placed before its medical 
graduates. 

I say comparatively high standard, for the requirements of the 
University in those days, and even during the twelve years at a 
later period, when I was one of the examiners of the medical 
faculty, were such as would not now be thought more than respect- 
able, and indeed were in many respects very imperfect. But, 
relatively to the means of learning, the standard was high, and 
none but the more able and ambitious of the students dreamed of 
passing the University. Nevertheless, the fact that many men of 



THE STATE AND THE MEDICAL PROFESSION 175 

this stamp did succeed in obtaining their degrees, led others to 
follow in their steps, and slowly but surely reacted upon the 
standard of teaching in the better medical schools. Then came 
the Medical Act of 1858. That Act introduced two immense im- 
provements: one of them was the institution of what is called the 
Medical Register, upon which the names of all persons recognised 
by the State as medical practitioners are entered; and the other 
was the establishment of the Medical Council, which is a kind of 
Medical Parliament, composed of representatives of the licensing 
bodies and of leading men in the medical profession nominated by 
the Crown. The powers given by the Legislature to the Medical 
Council were found practically to be very limited, but I think 
that no fair observer of the work will doubt that this much at- 
tacked body has excited no small influence in bringing about the 
great change for the better, which has been effected in the train- 
ing of men for the medical profession within my recollection. 

Another source of improvement must be recognised in the Scot- 
tish Universities, and especially in the medical faculty of the 
University of Edinburgh. The medical education and examina- 
tions of this body were for many years the best of their kind in 
these islands, and I doubt if, at the present moment, the three 
kingdoms can show a better school of medicine than that of 
Edinburgh. The vast number of medical students at that Uni- 
versity is sufficient evidence of the opinion of those most inter- 
ested in this subject. 

Owing to all these influences, and to the revolution which has 
taken place in the course of the last twenty years in our concep- 
tions of the proper method of teaching physical science, the train- 
ing of the medical student in a good school, and the examination 
test applied by the great majority of the present licensing bodies, 
reduced now to nineteen, in consequence of the retirement of the 
Archbishop and the fusion of two of the other licensing bodies, 
are totally different from what they were even twenty years ago. 

I was perfectly astonished, upon one of my sons commencing his 
medical career the other day, when I contrasted the carefully- 
watched courses of theoretical and practical instruction, which he 
is expected to follow with regularity and industry, and the num- 
ber and nature of the examinations which he will have to pass 
before he can receive his license, not only with the monstrous 
laxity of my own student days, but even with the state of things 
which obtained when my term of office as examiner in the Uni- 
versity of London expired some sixteen years ago. 

I have no hesitation in expressing the opinion, which is fully 
borne out by the evidence taken before the late Royal Commission, 



176 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

that a large proportion of the existing licensing bodies grant their 
licence on conditions which ensure quite as high a standard as it 
is practicable or advisable to exact under present circumstances, 
and that they show every desire to keep pace with the improvements 
of the times. And I think there can be no doubt that the great 
majority have so much improved their ways, that their standard is 
far above that of the ordinary qualification thirty years ago, and 
I cannot see what excuse there would be for meddling with them, 
if it were not for two other defects which have to be remedied. 

Unfortunately there remain two or three black sheep — licens- 
ing bodies which simply trade upon their privilege, and sell the 
cheapest wares they can for shame's sake supply to the bidder. 
Another defect in the existing system, even where the examina- 
tion has been so greatly improved as to be good of its kind, is 
that there are certain licensing bodies which give a qualification 
for an acquaintance with either medicine or surgery alone, and 
which more or less ignore obstetrics. This is a revival of the 
archaic condition of the profession when surgical operations were 
mostly left to the barbers and obstetrics to the midwives, and 
when the physicians thought themselves, and were considered by 
the world, the " superior persons " of the profession. I remem- 
ber a story was current in my young days of a great court physician 
who was travelling with a friend, like himself, bound on a 
visit to a country house. The friend fell down in an apoplectic 
fit, and the physician refused to bleed him because it was con- 
trary to professional etiquette for a physician to perform that 
operation. Whether the friend died or whether he got better 
because he was not bled I do not remember, but the moral of the 
story is the same. On the other hand, a famous surgeon was 
asked whether he meant to bring up his son to his own calling, 
" No," he said, " he is such a fool, I mean to make a physician of 
him." 

Nowadays, it is happily recognised that medicine is one and 
indivisible, and that no one can properly practise one branch who 
is not familiar with at any rate the principles of all. Thus the 
two great things that are wanted now are, in the first place, some 
means of enforcing such a degree of uniformity upon all the ex- 
amining bodies that none should present a disgracefully low mini- 
mum or pass examination; and the second point is that some 
body or other shall have the power of enforcing upon every can- 
didate for the licence to practise the study of the three branches, 
what is called the tripartite qualification. All the members of the 
late commission were agreed that these were the main points to be 



THE" STATE AND THE MEDICAL PROFESSION 177 

attended to in any proposals for the further improvement of 
medical training and qualification. 

But such being the ends in view, our notions as to the best way 
of attaining them were singularly divergent ; so that it came about 
that eleven conmiissioners made seven reports. There was one 
main majority report and six minor reports, which differed more 
or less from it, chiefly as to the best method of attaining these 
two objects. 

The majority report recommended the adoption of what is 
known as the conjoint scheme. According to this plan the power 
of granting a licence to practise is to be taken away from all the 
existing bodies, whether they have done well or ill, and to be 
placed in the hands of a body of delegates (divisional boards), 
one for each of the three kingdoms. The licence to practise is 
to be conferred by passing the delegate examination. The licensee 
may afterwards, if he pleases, go before any of the existing bodies 
and indulge in the luxury of another examination and the pay- 
ment of another fee in order to obtain a title, which does not 
legally place him in any better position than that which he would 
occupy without it. 

Under these circumstances, of course, the only motive for ob- 
taining the degree of a University or the licence of a medical 
corporation would be the prestige of these bodies. Hence the 
" black sheep " would certainly be deserted, while those bodies 
which have acquired a reputation by doing their duty would suffer 
less. 

But, as the majority report proposes that the existing bodies 
should be compensated for any loss they might suffer out of the 
fees of the examiners for the State licence, the curious result 
would be brought about that the profession of the future would 
be taxed, for all time, for the purpose of handing over to wholly 
irresponsible bodies a sum, the amount of which would be large for 
those who had failed in their duty and small for those who had 
done it. 

The scheme in fact involved a perpetual endowment of the 
" black sheep," calculated on the maximum of their ill-gained 
profits. I confess that I found myself unable to consent to a 
plan which, in addition to the rewarding the evil doers, proposed 
to take away the privileges of a number of examining bodies which 
confessedly were doing their duty well, for the sake of getting 
rid of a few who had failed. It was too much like the China- 
man's device of burning down his house to obtain a poor dish of 
roast pig — uncertain whether in the end he might not find a 
mere mass of cinders. What we do know is that the great ma- 



178 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

jority of the existing licensing bodies have marvellously improved 
in the course of the last twenty years, and are improving. What 
we do not know is that the complicated scheme of the divisional 
boards will ever be got to work at all. 

My own belief is that every necessary reform may be effected, 
without any interference with vested interests, without any un- 
just interference with the prestige of institutions which have been, 
and still are, extremely valuable, without any question of com- 
pensation arising, and by an extremely simple operation. It is 
only necessary in fact to add a couple of clauses to the Medical 
Act to this effect: (1) That from and after such a date no per- 
son shall be placed upon the Medical Kegister unless he possesses 
the threefold qualification. (2) That from and after this date no 
examination shall be accepted as satisfactory from any licensing 
body except such as has been carried on in part by examiners ap- 
pointed by the licensing body, and in part by coadjutor-examiners 
of equal authority appointed by the Medical Council or other cen- 
tral authority, and acting under their instructions. 

In laying down a rule of this kind the State confiscates nothing, 
and meddles with nobody, but simply acts within its undoubted 
right of laying down, the conditions under whicTi it will confer 
certain privileges upon medical practitioners. No one can say 
that the State has not the right to do this ; no one can say that the 
State interferes with any private enterprise or corporate interest 
unjustly, in laying down its own conditions for its own service. 
The plan would have the further advantage that all those corporate 
bodies which have obtained (as many of them have) a great and 
just prestige by the admirable way in which they have done their 
work, would reap their just reward in the thronging of students, 
thenceforward as formerly, to obtain their qualifications; while 
those who have neglected their duties, who have in some one or 
two cases, I am sorry to say, absolutely disgraced themselves, 
would sink into oblivion, and come to a happy and natural 
euthanasia, in which their misdeeds and themselves would be en- 
tirely forgotten. 

Two of my colleagues. Professor Turner and Mr. Bryce, M„ P., 
whose practical familiarity with examinations gave their opinions 
a high value, expressed their substantial approval of this scheme, 
and I am unable to see the weight of the objections urged against 
it. It is urged that the difficulty and expense of adequately in- 
specting so many examinations and of guaranteeing their effi- 
ciency would be great, and the difficulty in the way of a fair ad- 
justment of the representation of existing interests and of the 



THE STATE AND THE MEDICAL PROFESSION 179 

representation of new interests upon the general Medical Council 
would be almost insuperable. 

The latter objection is unintelligible to me. I am not aware 
that any attempt at such adjustment has been fairly discussed, and 
until that has been done it may be well not to tall^ about in- 
superable difficulties. As to the notion that there is any difficulty 
in getting the coadjutor-examiners, or that the expense will be 
overwhelming, we have the experience of Scotland, in which every 
University does, at the present time, appoint its coadjutor-exam- 
iners, who do their work just in the way proposed. 

Whether in the way I have proposed, or by the Conjoint Scheme, 
however, this is perfectly certain: the two things I refer to have 
to be done: you must have the threefold qualification; you must 
have the limitation of the minimum qualification also; and any 
scheme for the improvement of the relations of the State to medi- 
cine which does not profess to do these two things thoroughly and 
well, has no chance of finality. 

But when these reforms are witnessed, when there is a Medical 
Council armed with a more real authority than it at present pos- 
sesses; when a licence to practise cannot be obtained without the 
threefold qualification; and when an even minimum of qualifica- 
tion is exacted for every licence, is there anything else that re- 
mains that any one seriously interested in the welfare of the medi- 
cal profession, as I may most conscientiously declare myself to be, 
would like to see done? I think there are three things. 

In the first place, even now, when a four years' curriculum is 
required, the time allotted for medical education is too brief. A 
young man of eighteen beginning to study medicine is probably 
absolutely ignorant of the existence of such a thing as anatomy, 
or physiology, or indeed of any branch of physical science. He 
comes into an entirely new world; he addresses himself to a kind 
of work of which he has not the smallest experience. Up to that 
time his work has been with books; he rushes suddenly into work 
with things, which is as different from work with books as any- 
thing can well be. I am quite sure that a very considerable num- 
ber of young men spend a very large portion of their first session 
in simply learning how to learn subjects which are entirely new 
to them. And yet recollect that in this period of four years they 
have to acquire a knowledge of all the branches of a great and re- 
sponsible practical calling of medicine, surgery, obstetrics, general 
pathology, medical jurisprudence, and so forth. Anybody who 
knows what these things are, and who knows what is the kind of 
work which is necessary to give a man the confidence which will 
enable him to stand at the bedside and say to the satisfaction of 



180 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

his own conscience what shall be done, and what shall not lo 
done, must be aware that if a man has only four years to do all 
that in he will not have much time to spare. But that is not all. 
As I have said, the young man comes up, probably ignorant of the 
existence of science; he has never heard a word of chemistry, he 
has never heard a word of physics, he has not the smallest con- 
ception of the outlines of biological science; and all these things 
have to be learned as well and crammed into the time which in 
itself is barely sufficient to acquire a fair amount of that knowl- 
edge which is requisite for the satisfactory discharge of his pro- 
fessional duties. 

Therefore it is quite clear to me that, somehow or other, the 
curriculum must be lightened. It is not that any of the subjects 
which I have mentioned need not to be studied, and may be elim- 
inated. The only alternative therefore is to lengthen the time 
given to study. Everybody will agree with me that the practical 
necessities of life in this country are such that, for the average 
medical practitioner at any rate, it is hopeless to think of ex- 
tending the period of professional study beyond the age of twenty- 
two. So that as the period of study cannot be extended forwards, 
the only thing to be done is to extend it backwards. 

The question is how this can be done. My own belief is that 
if the Medical Council, instead of insisting upon that examination 
in general education which I am sorry to say I believe to be en- 
tirely futile, were to insist upon a knowledge of elementary 
physics, and chemistry, and biology, they would be taking one of 
the greatest steps which at {)resent can be made for the improve- 
ment of medical education. And the improvement would be this. 
The great majority of the young men who are going into the pro- 
fession have practically completed their general education — or 
they might very well have done so — by the age of sixteen or 
seventeen. If the interval between this age and that at which 
they commence their purely medical studies were employed in 
obtaining a practical acquaintance with elementary physics, chem- 
istry, and biology, in my judgment it would be as good as two 
years added to the course of medical study. And for two 
reasons : in the first place, because the subject-matter of that which 
they would learn is germane to their future studies, and is so much 
gained; in the second place, because you might clear out of the 
course of their professional study a great deal which at present 
occupies time and attention ; and last, but not least — probably 
most — they would then come to their medical studies prepared 
for that learning from Nature which is what they have to do 
in the course of becoming skilful medical men, and for which 



THE STATE AND THE MEDICAL PROFESSION 181 

at present they are not in the slightest degree prepared by their 
previous education. 

The second wish I have to express concerns London especially, 
and I may speak of it briefly as a more economical use of the 
teaching power in the medical schools. At this present time every 
great hospital in London — and there are ten or eleven of them 
— has its complete medical school, in which not only are the 
branches of practical medicine taught, but also those studies in 
general science, such as chemistry, elementary physics, general 
anatomy, and a variety of other topics which are what used to 
be called (and the term was an extremely useful one) the in- 
stitutes of medicine. That was all very well half a century ago; 
it is all very ill now, simply because those general branches of 
science, such as anatomy, physiology, chemistry, physiological 
chemistry, physiological physics, and so forth, have now become 
so large, and the mode of teaching them is so completely altered, 
that it is absolutely impossible for any mian to be a thoroughly 
competent teacher of them', or for any student to be effectually 
taught without the devotion of the whole time of the person 
who is engaged in teaching. I undertake to say that it is hope- 
lessly impossible for any man at the present time to keep abreast 
with the progress of physiology unless he gives his whole mind 
to it; and the bigger the mind is, the more scope he will find 
for its employment. Again, teaching has become, and must become 
still more, practical, and that also involves a large expenditure of 
time. But if a man is to give his whole time to any business he 
must live by it, and the resources of the schools do not permit 
them to maintain ten or eleven physiological specialists. 

If the students in their first one or two years were taught the 
institutes of medicine, in two or three central institutions, it 
would be perfectly easy to have those subjects taught thoroughly 
and effectually by persons who gave their whole mind and atten- 
tion to the subject; while at the same time the medical schools 
at the hospitals would remain what they ought to be — great 
institutions in which the largest possible opportunities are laid 
open for acquiring practical acquaintance with the phenomena 
of disease. So that the preliminary or earlier half of medical 
education would take place in the central institutions, and the 
final half would be devoted altogether to practical studies in the 
hospitals. 

I happen to know that this conception has been entertained, 
not only by myself, but by a great many of those persons who 
are most interested in the improvement of medical study for a 
considerable number of years. I do not know whether anything 



182 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

will come of it this half -century or not; but the thing has to be 
done. It is not a speculative notion; it lies patent to everybody 
who is accustomed to teaching, and knows what the necessities of 
teaching are; and I should very much like to see the first step 
taken — people making up their minds that it has to be done 
somehow or other. 

The last point to which I may advert is one which concerns 
the action of the profession itself more than anything else. We 
have arrangements for teaching, we have arrangements for the 
testing of qualifications, we have marvellous aids and appliances 
for the treatment of disease in all sorts of ways; but I do not 
find in London at the present time, in this little place of four 
or five million inhabitants which supports so many things, any 
organisation or any arrangement for advancing the science of 
medicine, considered as a pure science. I am quite aware that 
there are medical societies of various kinds; I am not ignorant 
of the lectureships at the College of Physicians and the College 
of Surgeons; there is the Brown Institute; and there is the 
Society for the Advancement of Medicine by Research, but there 
is no means, so far as I know, by which any person who has the 
inborn gifts of the investigator and discoverer of new truth, and 
who desires to apply that to the improvement of medical science, 
can carry out his intention. In Paris there is the University 
of Paris, which gives degrees; but there are also the Sorbonne 
and the College de France, places in which professoriates are 
established for the express purpose of enabling men who have the 
power of investigation, the power of advancing knowledge and 
thereby reacting on practice, to do that which it is their special 
mission to do. I do not know of anything of the kind in Lon- 
don; and if it should so happen that a Claude Bernard or a 
Ludwig should turn up in London, I really have not the slightest 
notion of what we could do with him'. We could not turn him 
to account, and I think we should have to export him to Germany 
or France. I doubt whether that is a good or a wise Condition 
of things. I do not think it is a condition of things which can 
exist for any great length of time, now that people are every 
day becoming more and more awake to the importance of scientific 
investigation and to the astounding and unexpected manner in 
which it everywhere reacts upon practical pursuits. I should 
look upon the establishment of some institution of that kind 
as a recognition on the part of the medical profession in general, 
that if their great and beneficent work is to be carried on, they 
must, like other people who have great and beneficent work to do, 
contribute to the advancement of knowledge in the only way in 
which experience shows that it can be advanced. 



BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MEDICINE 1S3 



XIV. 

THE CONNECTION OF THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES 

WITH MEDICINE * 

THE great body of theoretical and practical knowledge which 
has been accumulated by the labours of some eighty genera- 
tions, since the dawn of scientific thought in Europe, has no 
collective English name to which an objection may not be raised; 
and I use the term " medicine " as that which is least likely to be 
misunderstood; though, as every one knows, the name is com- 
monly applied, in a narrower sense, to one of the chief divisions 
of the totality of medical science. 

Taken in this broad sense, " medicine " not merely denotes a 
kind of knowledge, but it comprehends the various applications 
of that knowledge to the alleviation of the sufferings, the repair 
of the injuries, and the conservation of the health, of living 
beings. In fact, the practical aspect of medicine so far dominates 
over every other, that the '' Healing Art " is one of its most 
widely-received synonyms. It is so difficult to think of medicine 
otherwise than as something which is necessarily connected with 
curative treatment, that we are apt to forget that there must be, 
and is, such a thing as a pure science of medicine — a " pathol- 
ogy " which has no more necessary subservience to practical ends 
than has zoology or botany. 

The logical connection between this purely scientific doctrine of 
disease, or pathology, and ordinary biology, is easily traced. Liv- 
ing matter is characterised by its innate tendency to exhibit a 
definite series of the morphological and physiological phenomena 
which constitute organisation and life. Given a certain range 
of conditions, and these phenomena remain the same, within 
narrow limits, for each kind of living thing. They furnish the 
normal and typical character of the species, and, as such, they 
are the subject-matter of ordinary biology. 

Outside the range of these conditions, the normal course of 
the cycle of vital phenomena is disturbed; abnormal structure 

* An address to the International Medical Congress. 



184 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

makes its appearance, or the proper character and mutual adjust- 
ment of the functions cease to be preserved. The extent and 
the importance of these deviations from the typical life may 
vary indefinitely. They may have no noticeable influence on the 
general well-being- of the economy, or they may favour it. On 
the other hand, they may be of such a nature as to impede the 
activities of the organism, or even to involve its destruction. 

In the first case, these perturbations are ranged under the wide 
and somewhat vague category of "variations"; in the second, 
they are called lesions, states of poisoning, or diseases; and, as 
morbid states, they lie within the province of pathology. ISlo 
sharp line of demarcation can be drawn between the two classes 
of phenomena. No one can say where anatomical variations end 
and tumours begin, or where modification of function, which 
may at first promote health, passes into disease. All that can be 
said is, that whatever change of structure or function is hurtful 
belongs to pathology. Hence it is obvious that pathology is a 
branch of biology; it is the morphology, the physiology, the 
distribution, the aetiology of abnormal life. 

However obvious this conclusion may be now, it was nowise 
apparent in the infancy of medicine. Eor it is a peculiarity 
of the physical sciences that they are independent in proportion 
as they are imperfect; and it is only as they advance that the 
bonds which really unite them all become apparent. Astronomy 
had no manifest connection with terrestrial physics before the 
publication of the " Principia " ; that of chemistry with physics 
is of still more modern revelation; that of physics and chemistry 
with physiology, has been stoutly denied within the recollection 
' " most of us, and perhaps still may be. 

Or, to take a case which affords a closer parallel with that of 
medicine. Agriculture has been cultivated from the earliest 
times, and, from a remote antiquity, men have attained consider- 
able practical skill in the cultivation of the useful plants, and 
have empirically established many scientific truths concerning 
the conditions under which they flourish. But, it is within the 
memory of many of us, that chemistry on the one hand, and 
vegetable physiology on the other, attained a stage of develop- 
ment such that they were able to furnish a sound basis for 
scientific agriculture. Similarly, medicine took its rise in the 
practical needs of mankind. At first, studied without reference 
to any other branch of knowledge, it long maintained, indeed still 
to some extent maintains, that independence. Historically, its 
connection with the biological sciences has been slowly estab- 
lished, and the full extent and intimacy of that connection are 



BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MEDICINE 185 

only now beginning to be apparent. I trust I have not been 
mistaken in supposing that an attempt to give a brief sketch 
of the steps by which a philosophical necessity has become an 
historical reality, may not be devoid of interest, possibly of 
instruction, to the members of this great Congress, profoundly 
interested as all are in the scientific development of medicine. 

The history of medicine is more complete and fuller than that 
of any other science, except, perhaps, astronomy; and, if we 
follow back the long record as far as clear evidence lights us, we 
find ourselves taken to the early stages of the civilisation of 
Greece. The oldest hospitals were the temples of iEsculapius; 
to these Asclepeia, always erected on healthy sites, hard by fresh 
springs and surrounded by shady groves, the sick and the maimed 
resorted to seek the aid of the god of health. Votive tablets 
or inscriptions recorded the symptoms, no less than the gratitude, 
of those who were healed; and, from these primitive clinical 
records, the half -priestly, half -philosophic caste of the Asclepiads 
compiled the data upon which the earliest generalisations of 
medicine, as an inductive science, were based. 

In this state, pathology, like all the inductive sciences at their 
origin, was merely natural history; it registered the phenomena 
of disease, classified them, and ventured upon a prognosis, wher- 
ever the observation of constant co-existences and sequences sug- 
gested a rational expectation of the like recurrence under similar 
circumstances. 

Further than this it hardly went. In fact, in the then state 
of knowledge, and in the condition of philosophical speculation 
at that time, neither the causes of the morbid state, nor the 
rationale of treatment, were likely to be sought for as we seek 
for them now. The anger of a god was. a sufficient reason for 
the existence of a malady, and a dream ample warranty for 
therapeutic measures; that a physical phenomenon must needs 
have a physical cause was not the inifplied or expressed axiom 
that it is to us moderns. 

The great man whose name is inseparably connected with the 
foundation of medicine, Hippocrates, certainly knew very little, 
indeed practically nothing, of anatomy or physiology; and he 
would probably have been perplexed even to imagine the possi- 
bility of a connection between the zoological studies of his con- 
temporary Democritus and medicine. Nevertheless, in so far as 
he, and those who worked before alid after him, in the same spirit, 
ascertained, as matters of experience, that a wound, or a luxation, 
or a fever, presented such and such symptoms, and that the 
return of the patient to healtl was facilitated by such and such 



186 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

measures, they established laws of nature, and began the con- 
struction of the science of pathology. All true science begins 
with empiricism — though all true science is such exactly, in so 
far as it strives to pass out of the empirical stage into that of 
the deduction of empirical from more general truths. Thus, it is 
not wonderful, that the early physicians had little or nothing to 
do with the development of biological science; and, on the other 
hand, that the early biologists did not much concern themselves 
with medicine. There is nothing to show that the Asclepiads 
took any prominent share in the work of founding anatomy, 
physiology, zoology, and botany. Kather do these seem to have 
sprung from the early philosophers, who were essentially natural 
philosophers, animated by the characteristically Greek thirst for 
knowledge as such. Pythagoras, Alcmeon, Democritus, Diogenes 
of Apollonia, are all credited with anatomical and physiological 
investigations; and, though Aristotle is said to have belonged to 
an Asclepiad family, and not improbably owed his taste for 
anatomical and zoological inquiries to the teachings of his father, 
the physician Nicomachus, the " Historia Animalium," and the 
treatise " De Partibus Animalium," are as free from any allusion 
to medicine as if they had issued from a modern biological 
laboratory. 

It may be added, that it is not easy to see in what way it could 
have benefited a physician of Alexander's time to know all that 
Aristotle knew on these subjects. His human anatomy was too 
rough to avail niuch in diagnosis ; his physiology was too erroneous 
to supply data for pathological reasoning. But when the Alex- 
andrian school, with Erasistratus and Herophilus at their head, 
turned to account the opportunities of studying human structure, 
afforded to them by the Ptolemies, the value of the large amount 
of accurate knowledge thus obtained to the surgeon for his 
operations, and to the physician for his diagnosis of internal 
disorders, became obvious, and a connection was established 
between anatomy and medicine, which has ever become closer 
and closer. Since the revival of learning, surgery,, medical 
diagnosis, and anatomy have gone hand in hand. Morgagni 
called his great work, " De sedibus et causis morborum per an- 
atomen indagatis," and not only showed the way to search out 
the localities and the causes of disease by anatomy, but himself 
travelled wonderfully far upon the road. Bichat, discriminating 
the grosser constituents of the organs and parts of the body, one 
from another, pointed out the direction which modern research 
must take; until, at length, histology, a science of yesterday, 
as it seems to many of us, has carried the work of Morgagni as 



BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MEDICINE 187 

far as the microscope can take us, and has extended the realm 
of pathological anatomy to the limits of the invisible world. 

Thanks to the intimate alliance of morphology with medicine, 
the natural history of disease has, at the present day, attained 
a high degree of perfection. Accurate regional anatomy has ren- 
dered practicable the exploration of the most hidden parts of the 
organism, and the determination, during life, of morbid changes 
in them; anatomical and histological post-mortem investigations 
have supplied physicians with a clear basis upon which to rest 
the classification of diseases, and with unerring tests of the 
accuracy or inaccuracy of their diagnoses. 

If men could be satisfied with pure knowledge, the extreme 
precision with which, in these days, a sufferer raay be told what 
is happening, and what is likely to happen, even in the most 
recondite parts of his bodily frame, should be as satisfactory to 
the patient as it is to the scientific pathologist who gives him 
the information. But I am afraid it is not; and even the prac- 
tising physician, while nowise under-estimating the regulative 
value of accurate diagnosis, must often lament that so much of 
his knowledge rather prevents him from doing wrong than helps 
him to do right. 

A scorner of physic once said that nature and disease may be 
compared to two men fighting, the doctor to a blind man with 
a club, who strikes into the melee, sometimes hitting the disease, 
and sometimes hitting nature. The matter is not mended if you 
suppose the blind man's hearing to be so acute that he can 
register every stage of the struggle, and pretty clearly predict 
how it will end. He had better not meddle at all, until his eyes 
are opened, until he can see the exact position of the antagonists, 
and make sure of the effect of his blows. But that which it 
behooves the physician to see, not, indeed, with his bodily eye, but 
with clear, intellectual vision, is a process, and the chain of 
causation involved in that process. Disease, as we have seen, is 
a perturbation of the normal activities of a living body, and it 
is, and must remain, unintelligible, so long as we are ignorant 
of the nature of these normal activities. In other words, there 
could be no real science of pathology until the science of physi- 
ology had reached a degree of perfection unattained, and indeed 
unattainable, until quite recent times. 

So far as medicine is concerned, I am not sure that physiology, 
such as it was down to the time of Harvey, might as well not 
have existed. Nay, it is perhaps no exaggeration to say that, 
within the memory of living men, justly renowned practitioners 
of medicine and surgery knew less physiology than is now to be 



188 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

learned from the most elementary text -book; and, beyond a few- 
broad facts, regarded what they did know as of extremely little 
practical importance. Nor am I disposed to blame them for this 
conclusion; physiology must be useless, or worse than useless, 
to pathology, so long as its fundamental conceptions are 
erroneous. 

Harvey is often said to be the founder of modern physiology; 
and there can be no question that the elucidations of the function 
of the heart, of the nature of the pulse, and of the course of the 
blood, put forth in the ever-memorable little essay, " De motu 
cordis," directly worked a revolution in men's views of the nature 
and of the concatenation of some of the most important physio- 
logical processes among the higher animals; while, indirectly, 
their influence was perhaps even more remarkable. 

But, though Harvey made this signal and perennially important 
contribution to the physiology of the moderns, his general con- 
ception of vital processes was essentially identical with that of 
the ancients ; and, in the " Exercitationes de generatione," and 
notably in the singular chapter " De calido innato," he shows 
himself a true son of Galen and of Aristotle. 

For Harvey, the blood possesses powers superior to those of 
the elements; it is the seat of a soul which is not only vegetative, 
but also sensitive and motor. The blood maintains and fashions 
all parts of the body, " idque summa cum providentia et intellectu 
in finem certum agens, quasi ratiocinio quodam uteretur." 

Here is the doctrine of the " pneuma," the product of the 
philosophical mould into which the animism of primitive men 
ran in Greece, in full force. Nor did its strength abate for long 
after Harvey's time. The same ingrained tendency of the human 
mind to suppose that a process is explained when it is ascribed to 
a power of which nothing is known except that it is the hypo- 
thetical agent of the process, gave rise, in the next century, to 
the animism of Stahl; and, later, to the doctrine of a vital prin- 
ciple, that " asylum ignorantise " of physiologists, which has so 
easily accounted for everything and explained nothing, down to 
our own times. 

Now the essence of modern, as contrasted with ancient, physio- 
logical science appears to me to lie in its antagonism to animistic 
hypotheses and animistic phraseology. It offers physical explana- 
tions of vital phenomena, or frankly confesses that it has none 
to offer. And, so far as I know, the first person who gave 
expression to this modern view of physiology, who was bold enough 
to enunciate the proposition that vital phenomena, like all the 



BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MEDICINE 189 

other phenomena of the physical world, are, in ultimate analysis, 
resolvable into matter and motion, was Rene Descartes. 

The fifty-four years of life of this most original and powerful 
thinker are widely overlapped, on both sides, by the eighty of 
Harvey, who survived his younger contemporary by seven years, 
and takes pleasure in acknowledging the French philosopher's 
appreciation of his great discovery. 

In fact, Descartes accepted the doctrine of the circulation as 
propounded by " Harvseus medecin d'Angleterre," and gave a full 
account of it in his first work, the famous "Discours de la 
Methode," which was published in 1637, only nine years after 
the exercitation " De motu cordis " ; and, though differing from 
Harvey on some important points (in which it may be noted, 
in passing, Descartes was wrong and Harvey right), he always 
speaks of him with great respect. And so important does the 
subject seem to Descartes, that he returns to it in the " Traite des 
Passions," and in the " Traite de I'Homme." 

It is easy to see that Harvey's work must have had a peculiar 
significance for the subtle thinker, to whom we owe both the 
spiritualistic and the materialistic philosophies of modern times. 
It was in the very year of its publication, 1628, that Descartes 
withdrew into that life of solitary investigation and meditation 
of which his philosophy was the fruit. And, as the course of his 
speculations led him to establish an absolute distinction of nature 
between the material and the mental worlds, he was logically 
compelled to seek for the explanation of the phenomena of the 
material world within itself; and having allotted the realm of 
thought to the soul, to see nothing but extension and motion in 
the rest of nature. Descartes uses " thought " as the equivalent 
of our modern term " consciousness." Thought is the function 
of the soul, and its only function. Our natural heat and all the 
movements of the body, says he, do not depend on the soul. 
Death does not take place from any fault of the soul, but only 
because some of the principal parts of the body become corrupted. 
The body of a living man differs from that of a dead man in 
the same way as a watch or other automaton (that is to say, a 
machine which moves of itself) when it is wound up and has, 
in itself, the physical principle of the movements which the mech- 
anism is adapted to perform, differs from the same watch, or other 
machine, when it is broken, and the physical principle of its 
movement no longer exists. All the actions which are common 
to us and the lower animals depend only on the conformation 
of our organs, and the course which the animal spirits take in 
the brain, the nerves, and the muscles; in the same way as the 



190 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

movement of a watch is produced by nothing but the force of 
its spring and the figure of its wheels and other parts. 

Descartes' " Treatise on Man " is a sketch of human physiology, 
in which a bold attempt is made to explain all the phenomena 
of life, except those of consciousness, by physical reasonings. To 
a mind turned in this direction, Harvey's exposition of the heart 
and vessels as a hydraulic mechanism must have been supremely 
welcome. 

Descartes was not a mere philosophical theorist, but a hard- 
working dissector and experimenter, and he held the strongest 
opinion respecting the practical value of the new conception 
which he was introducing. He speaks of the importance of pre- 
serving health, and of the dependence of the mind on the body 
being so close that, perhaps, the only way of making men wiser 
and better than they are, is to be sought in medical science. " It 
is true," says he, " that as medicine is now practised it contains 
little that is very useful; but without any desire to depreciate, 
I am sure that there is no one, even among professional men, who 
will not declare that all we know is very little as compared with 
that which remains to be known; and that we might escape an 
infinity of diseases of the mind, no less than of the body, and 
even perhaps from the weakness of old age, if we had sufficient 
knowledge of their causes, and of all the remedies with which 
nature has provided us." ^ So strongly impressed was Descartes 
with this, that he resolved to spend the rest of his life in trying 
to acquire such a knowledge of nature as would lead to the con- 
struction of a better medical doctrine.f The anti-Cartesians 
found material for cheap ridicule in these aspirations of the 
philosopher; and it is almost needless to say that, in the thirteen 
years which elapsed between the publication of the " Discours " 
and the death of Descartes, he did not contribute much to their 
realisation. But, for the next century, all progress in physiology 
took place along the lines which Descartes laid down. 

The greatest physiological and pathological work of the seven- 
teenth century, Borelli's treatise " De Motu Animalium," is, to 
all intents and purposes, a development of Descartes' fuildamental 
conception; and the same may be said of the physiology and 
pathology of Boerhaave, whose authority dominated in the med- 
ical world of the first half of the eighteenth century. 

With the origin of modern chemistry, and of electrical science, 
in the latter half of the eighteenth century, aids in the analysis 
of the phenomena of life, of which Descartes could not have 

* Discours de la Methode, 6e partie, Ed. Cousin, p. 193. 
t lUd. pp. 193 and 211. 



BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MEDICINE 191 

dreamed, were offered to the physiologist. And the greater part of 
the gigantic progress which has been made in the present century 
is a justification of the prevision of Descartes. For it consists, 
essentially, in a more and more complete resolution of the grosser 
organs of the living body into physico-chemical mechanisms. 

" I shall try to explain our whole bodily machinery in such a 
way, that it will be no more necessary for us to suppose that 
the soul produces such movements as are not voluntary, than it 
is to think that there is in a clock a soul which causes it to show 
the hours." * These words of Descartes might be appropriately 
taken as a motto by the author of any modern treatise on 
physiology. 

But though, as I think, there is no doubt that Descartes was 
the first to propound the fundamental conception of the living 
body as a physical mechanism, which is the distinctive feature of 
modern, as contrasted with ancient physiology, he was misled 
by the natural temptation to carry out, in all its details, a parallel 
between the machines with which he was familiar, such as clocks 
and pieces of hydraulic apparatus, and the living machine. In 
all such machines there is a central source of power, and the 
parts of the machine are merely passive distributors of that power. 
The Cartesian school conceived of the living body as a machine 
of this kind; and herein they might have learned from Galen, 
who, whatever ill use he may have made of the doctrine of 
" natural faculties," nevertheless had the great merit of perceiving 
that local forces play a great part in physiology. 

The same truth was recognised by Glisson, but it was first 
prominently brought forward in the Hallerian doctrine of the 
" vis insita " of muscles. If muscle can contract without nerve, 
there is an end of the Cartesian mechanical explanation of its 
contraction by the influx of animal spirits. 

The discoveries of Trembley tended in the same direction. In 
the freshwater Hydra, no trace was to be found of that compli- 
cated machinery upon which the performance of the functions 
in the higher animals were supposed to depend. And yet the 
hydra moved, fed, grew, multiplied, and its fragments exhibited 
all the powers of the whole. And, finally, the work of Caspar F. 
Wolff,t by demonstrating the fact that the growth and develop- 
ment of both plants and animals take place antecedently to the 
existence of their grosser organs, and are, in fact, the causes and 
not the consequences of organisation (as then understood), sapped 

* De la Formation du Foetus. 
t Theoria Generationis, 1759. 



192 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

the foundations of the Cartesian physiology as a complete ex- 
pression of vital phenomena. 

For Wolff, the physical basis of life is a fluid, possessed of a 
" vis essentialis " and a " solidescibilitas," in virtue of which it 
gives rise to organisation; and, as he points out, this conclusion 
strikes at the root of the whole iatro-mechanical system. 

In this country, the great authority of John Hunter exerted 
a similar influence; though it must be admitted that the too 
sibylline utterances which are the outcome of Hunter's struggles 
to define his conceptions are often susceptible of more than one 
interpretation. JSFevertheless, on some points Hunter is clear 
enough. For example, he is of opinion that " Spirit is only a 
property of matter " (" Introduction to Natural History," p. 6), 
he is prepared to renounce animism, (I. c. p. 8), and his concep- 
tion of life is so completely physical that he thinks of it as 
something which can exist in a state of combination in the food. 
" The aliment we take in has in it, in a fixed state, the real life ; 
and this does not become active until it has got into the lungs; 
for there it is freed from its prison " (" Observations on Phys- 
iology," p. 113). He also thinks that "It is more in accord with 
the general principles of the animal machine to suppose that 
none of its effects are produced from any mechanical principle 
whatever; and that every effect is produced from an action in 
the part; which action is produced by a stimulus upon the part 
which acts, or upon some other part with which this part sym- 
pathises so as to take up the whole action" (I. c. p. 152). 

And Hunter is as clear as Wolff, with whose work he was 
probably unacquainted, that " whatever life is, it most certainly 
does not depend upon structure or organisation " (L c. p. 114). 

Of course it is impossible that Hunter could have intended to 
deny the existence of purely mechanical operations in the animal 
body. But while, with Borelli and Boerhaave, he looked upon 
absorption, nutrition, and secretion as operations effected by 
means of the small vessels, he differed from the mechanical 
physiologists, who regarded these operations as the result of 
the mechanical properties of the small vessels, such as -the size, 
form, and disposition of their canals and apertures. Hunter, on 
the contrary, considers them to be the effect of properties of 
these vessels which are not mechanical but vital. " The vessels," 
says he, " have more of the polypus in them than any other part 
of the body," and he talks of the " living and sensitive principles 
of the arteries," and even of the " dispositions or feelings of the 
arteries." " When the blood is good and genuine the sensations 
of the arteries, or the dispositions for sensation, are agreeable. 



BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MEDICINE 193 

. It is then they dispose of the blood to the best ad- 
vantage, increasing the growth of the whole, supplying any losses, 
keeping up a due succession, etc." (I. c. p. 133). 

If we follow Hunter's conceptions to their logical issue, the 
life of one of the higher animals is essentially the sum of the 
lives of all the vessels, each of which is a sort of physiological 
unit, answering to a polype; and, as health is the result of the 
normal " action of the vessels," so is disease an effect of their 
abnormal action. Hunter thus stands in thought, as in time, 
midway between Borelli on the one hand, and Bichat on the 
other. 

The acute founder of general anatomy, in fact, outdoes Hunter 
in his desire to exclude physical reasonings from the realm of life. 
Except in the interpretation of the action of the sense organs, 
he will not allow physics to have anything to do with physiology. 

" To apply the physical sciences to physiology is to explain the 
phenomena of living bodies by the laws of inert bodies. Now 
this is a false principle, hence all its consequences are marked 
with the same stamp. Let us leave to chemistry its affinity; to 
physics, its elasticity and its gravity. Let us invoke for physi- 
ology only sensibility and contractility." * 

Of all the unfortunate dicta of men of eminent ability this 
seems one of the most unhappy, when we think of what the 
application of the methods and the data of physics and chemistry 
has done towards bringing physiology into its present state. It 
is not too much to say that one-half of a modern text-book of 
physiology consists of applied physics and chemistry; and that it 
is exactly in the exploration of the phenomena of sensibility and 
contractility that physics and chemistry have exerted the most 
potent influence. 

Nevertheless, Bichat rendered a solid service to physiological 
progress by insisting upon the fact that what we call life, in one 
of the higher animals, is not an indivisible unitary archaeus dom- 
inating, from its central seat, the parts of the organism, but a 
compound result of the synthesis of the separate lives of those 
parts. 

" All animals," says he, " are assemblages of different organs, 
each of which performs its function and concurs, after its fashion, 
in the preservation of the whole. They are so many special 
machines in the general machine which constitutes the individual. 
But each of these special machines is itself compounded of many 
tissues of very different natures, which in truth constitute the 
elements of those organs" (I. c. Ixxix.). "The conception of a 

* Anatomie gen4rale. 



194 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

proper vitality is applicable only to these simple tissues, and not 
to the organs themselves " (Z. c. Ixxxiv.). 

And Bichat proceeds to make the obvious application of this 
doctrine of synthetic life, if I may so call it, to pathology. Since 
diseases are only alterations of vital properties, and the properties 
of each tissue are distinct from those of the rest, it is evident 
that the diseases of each tissue must be different from those of 
the rest. Therefore, in any organ composed of different tissues, 
one may be diseased and the other remain healthy; and this is 
what happens in most cases (L c. Ixxxv.). 

In a spirit of true prophecy, Bichat says, " We have arrived 
at an epoch in which pathological anatomy should start afresh." 
For, as the analysis of the organs had led him to the tissues as 
the physiological units of the organism; so, in a succeeding 
generation, the analysis of the tissues led to the cell as the 
physiological element of the tissues. The contemporaneous study 
of development brought out the same result; and the zoologists 
and botanists, exploring the simplest and the lowest forms of ani- 
mated beings, confirmed the great induction of the cell theory. 
Thus the apparently opposed views, which have been battling with 
one another ever since the middle of the last century, have proved 
to be each half the truth. 

The proposition of Descartes that the body of a living man is 
a machine, the actions of which are explicable by the known laws 
of matter and motion, is unquestionably largely true. But it is 
also true, that the living body is a synthesis of innumerable 
physiological elements, each of which may nearly be described, in 
Wolff's words, as a fluid possessed of a " vis essentialis " and a 
'' solidescibilitas " ; or, in modern phrase, as protoplasm susceptible 
of structural metamorphosis and functional metabolism: and that 
the only machinery, in the precise sense in which the Cartesian 
school understood mechanism, is that which co-ordinates and 
regulates these physiological units into an organic whole. 

In fact, the body is a machine of the nature of an army, not of 
that of a watch or of a hydraulic apparatus. Of this army each 
cell is a soldier, an organ a brigade, the central nervous system 
headquarters and field telegraph, the alimentary and circulatory 
system the commissariat. Losses are made good by recruits born 
in camp, and the life of the individual is a campaign, conducted 
successfully for a number of years, but with certain defeat in 
the long run. 

The efficacy of an army, at any given moment, depends on 
the health of the individual soldier, and on the perfection of the 
machinery by which he is led and brought into action at the 



BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MEDICINE 195 

proper time; and, therefore, if the analogy holds good, there can 
be only two kinds of diseases, the one dependent on abnormal 
states of the physiological units, the other on perturbations of 
their co-ordinating and alimentative machinery. 

Hence, the establishment of the cell theory, in normal biology, 
was swiftly followed by a " cellular pathology," as its logical 
counterpart. I need not remind you how great an instrument of 
investigation this doctrine has proved in the hands of the man 
of genius to whom its development is due, and who would prob- 
ably be the last to forget that abnormal conditions of the co- 
ordinative and distributive machinery, of the body are no less 
important factors of disease. 

Henceforward, as it appears to me, the connection of medi- 
cine with the biological sciences is clearly indicated. Pure patho- 
logy is that branch of biology which defines the particular per- 
turbation of cell-life, or of the co-ordinating machinery, or of 
both, on which the phenomena of disease depend. 

Those who are conversant with the present state of biology 
will hardly hesitate to admit that the conception of the life of 
one of the higher animals as the summation of the lives of a cell 
aggregate, brought into harmonious action by a co-ordinative 
machinery formed by some of these cells, constitutes a permanent 
acquisition of physiological science. But the last form of the 
battle between the animistic and the physical views of life is 
seen in the contention whether the physical analysis of vital 
phenomena can be carried beyond this point or not. 

There are some to whom living protoplasm is a substance, even 
such as Harvey conceived the blood to be, " summa cum provi- 
dentia et intellectu in finem certum agens, quasi ratiocinio 
quodam ; " and who look with as little favour as Bichat did, upon 
any attempt to apply the principles and the methods of physics 
and chemistry to the investigation of the vital processes of growth, 
metabolism, and contractility. They stand upon the ancient 
ways; only, in accordance with that progress towards democracy, 
which a great political writer has declared to be the fatal charac- 
teristic of modern times, they substitute a republic formed by a 
few billion of " animulse " for the monarchy of the all-pervading 
" anima." 

Others, on the contrary, supported by a robust faith in the 
universal applicability of the principles laid down by Descartes, 
and seeing that the actions called " vital " are, so far as we have 
any means of knowing, nothing but changes of place of particles 
of matter, look to molecular physics to achieve the analysis of the 
living protoplasm itself into a molecular mechanism. If there 



196 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

is any truth in the received doctrines of physics, that contrast be- 
tween living and inert matter, on which Bichat lays so much 
stress, does not exist. In nature, nothing is at rest, nothing is 
amorphous ; the simplest particle of that which men in their blind- 
ness are pleased to call " brute matter " is a vast aggregate of 
molecular mechanisms performing complicated movements of im- 
mense rapidity, and sensitively adjusting themselves to every 
change in the surrounding world. Living matter differs from 
other matter in degree and not in kind; the microcosm repeats the 
macrocosm; and one chain of causation connects the nebulous 
original of suns and planetary systems with the protoplasmic 
foundation of life and organisation. 

From this point of view, pathology is the analogue of the theory 
of perturbations in astronomy; and therapeutics resolves itself 
into the discovery of the means by which a system of forces com- 
petent to eliminate any given perturbation may be introduced 
into the economy. And, as pathology bases itself upon normal 
physiology, so therapeutics rests upon pharmacology; which is, 
strictly speaking, a part of the great biological topic of the in- 
fluence of conditions on the living organism, and has no scientific 
foundation apart from physiology. 

It appears to me that there is no more hopeful indication of the 
progress of medicine towards the ideal of Descartes than is to be 
derived from a comparison of the state of pharmacology, at the 
present day, with that which existed forty years ago. If we 
consider the knowledge positively acquired, in this short time, of 
the modus operandi of urari, of atropia, of physostigmin, of 
veratria, of casca, of strychnia, of bromide of potassium, of phos- 
phorus, there can surely be no ground for doubting that, sooner 
or later, the pharmacologist will supply the physician with the 
means of affecting, in any desired sense, the functions of any 
physiological elemjcnt of the body. It will, in short, become pos- 
sible to introduce into the economy a molecular mechanism which, 
like a very cunningly-contrived torpedo, shall find its way to some 
particular group of living elements, and cause an explosion among 
them, leaving the rest untouched. 

The search for the explanation of diseased states in modified 
cell-life; the discovery of the important part played by parasitic 
organisms in the a3tiology of disease; the elucidation of the action 
of medicaments by the methods and the data of experimental 
physiology; appear to me to be the greatest steps which have ever 
been made towards the establishment of medicine on a scientific 
basis. I need hardly say they could not have been made except 
for the advance of normal biology, 



BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MEDICINE 197 

There can be no question, then, as to the nature or the value 
of the connection between medicine and the biological sciences. 
There can be no doubt that the future of pathology and of thera- 
peutics, and, therefore, that of practical medicine, depends upon 
the extent to which those who occupy themselves with these sub- 
jects are trained in the methods and impregnated with the funda- 
mental truths of biology. 

And, in conclusion, I venture to suggest that the collective 
sagacity of this Congress could occupy itself with no more im- 
portant question than with this : How is medical education to be 
arranged, so that, without entangling the student in those details 
of the systematist which are valueless to him, he may be enabled 
to obtain a firm grasp of the great truths respecting animal and 
vegetable life, without which, notwithstanding all the progress of 
scientific medicine, he will still find himself an empiric? 



198 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 



XV. 

THE SCHOOL BOAEDS: WHAT THEY CAN DO, AND 
WHAT THEY MAY DO. 

AN electioneering manifesto would be out of place in the 
pages of this Review ; but any suspicion that may arise in 
the mind of the reader that the following pages partae of 
that nature, will be dispelled, if he reflect that they cannot be 
published* until after the day on which the ratepayers of the 
metropolis will have decided which candidates for seats upon the 
Metropolitan School Board they will take, and which they will 
leave. 

As one of those candidates, I may be permitted to say, that I 
feel much in the frame of mind of the Irish bricklayer's laborer, 
who bet another that he could not carry him to the top of the 
ladder in his hod. The challenged hodman won his wager, but 
as the stakes were handed over, the challenger wistfully remarked, 
" I'd great hopes of falling at the third round from the top." 
And, in view of the work and the worry which awaits the mem- 
bers of the School Boards, I must confess to an occasional un- 
grateful hope that the friends who are toiling upwards with me in 
their hod, may, when they reach " the third round from the top," 
let me fall back into peace and quietness. 

But whether fortune befriend me in this rough method, or not, 
I should like to submit to those of whom I am potential, but of 
whom I may not be an actual, colleague, and to others who may be 
interested in this most important problem — how to get the Edu- 
cation Act to work efficiently — some considerations as to what 
are the duties of the members of the School Boards, and what are 
the limits of their power. 

I suppose no one will be disposed to dispute the proposition, that 
the prime duty of every member of such a Board is to endeavour 
to administer the Act honestly; or in accordance, not only with its 

* Notwithstanding Mr. Huxley's intentions, the Editor took upon 
himself, in what seemed to him to be the public interest, to send an 
extract from this article to the newspapers — before the day of the 
election of the School Board. — Editor of the Contemporary Review. 



THE SCHOOL BOARDS 199 

letter, but with its spirit. And if so, it would seem that the first 
step toward this very desirable end is, to obtain a clear notion of 
what that letter signifies, and what that spirit implies; or, in 
other words, what the clauses of the Act are intended to enjoin 
and to forbid. So that it is really not admissible, except for fac- 
tious and abusive purposes, to assume that any one who endeavours 
to get at this clear meaning is desirous only of raising quibbles 
and making difficulties. 

Reading the Act with this desire to understand it, I find that 
its provisions may be classified, as might naturally be expected, 
under two heads : the one set relating to the subject-matter of 
education; the other to the establishment, maintenance, and ad- 
ministration of the schools in which that education is to be con- 
ducted. 

Now it is a most important circumstance, that all the sections 
of the Act, except four, belong to the latter division; that is, they 
refer to mere matters of administration. The four sections in 
question are the seventh, the fourteenth, the sixteenth, and the 
ninety-seventh. Of these,^ the seventh, the fourteenth, and the 
ninety-seventh deal with the subject-matter of education, while 
the sixteenth defines the nature of the relations which are to exist 
between the " Education Department " (an euphemism for the fu- 
ture Minister of Education) and the School Boards. It is the 
sixteenth clause which is the most important, and, in some re- 
spects, the most remarkable of all. It runs thus : — 

" If the School Board do, or permit, any act in contravention of, or 
fail to comply with, the regulations, according to which a school provided 
by them is required by this Act to be conducted, the Education Depart- 
ment may declare the School Board to be, and such Board shall accord- 
ingly be deemed to be, a Board in default, and the Education Department 
may proceed accordingly ; and every act, or omission, of any member 
of the School Board, or manager appointed by them, or any person under 
the control of the Board, shall be deemed to be permitted by the Board, 
unless the contrary be proved. 

" If any dispute arises as to whether the School Board have done, or 
permitted, any act in contravention of, or have failed to comply with, 
the said regulations, the matter shall le referred to the Education De- 
partment, whose decision thereon shall he flnalJ' 

It will be observed that this clause gives the Minister of Edu- 
cation absolute power over the doings of the School Boards. He 
is not only the administrator of the Act, but he is its inter- 
preter. I had imagined that on the occurrence of a dispute, not 
as regards a question of pure administration, but as to the mean- 



200 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

ing of a clause of the Act, a case miglit be taken and referred to 
a court of justice. But I am led to believe that the Legislature 
has, in the present instance, deliberately taken the power out of 
the hands of the judges and lodged it in those of the Minister of 
Education, who, in accordance with our method of making Min- 
isters, will necessarily be a political partisan, and who may be a 
strong theological sectary into the bargain. And I am informed 
by members of Parliament who watched the progress of the Act, 
that the responsibility for this unusual state of things rests, not 
with the Government, but with the Legislature, which exhibited a 
singular disposition to accumulate power in the hands of the 
future Minister of Education, and to evade the more troublesome 
difficulties of the education question by leaving them to be settled 
between that Minister and the School Boards. 

I express no opinion whether it is, or is not, desirable that such 
powers of controlling all the School Boards in the country should 
be possessed by a person who may be, like Mr. Forster, eminently 
likely to use these powers justly and wisely, but who also may be 
quite the reverse. I merely wish to draw attention to the fact that 
such powers are given to the Minister, whether he be fit or unfit. 
The extent of these powers becomes apparent when the other sec- 
tions of the Act referred to are considered. The fourth clause of 
the seventh section says: — 

" The school shall be conducted in accordance with the conditions 
required to be fulfilled by an elementary school in order to obtain an 
annual Parliamentary grant." 

What these conditions are appears from the following clauses 
of the ninety-seventh section : — 

" The conditions required to be fulfilled by an elementary school in 
order to obtain an annual Parliamentary grant shall be those contained in 
the minutes of the Education Department in force for the time being. 
. . . Provided that no such minute of the Education Department, not 
in force at the time of the passing of this Act, shall be deemed to be 
in force until it has lain for not less than one month on the table of 
both tlouses of Parliament." 

Let us consider how this will work in practice. A school es- 
tablished by a School Board may receive support from three 
sources — from the rates, the school fees, and the Parliamentary 
grant. The latter may be as great as the two former taken to- 
gether; and as it may be assumed, without much risk of error, 
that a constant pressure will be exerted by the ratepayers on the 



THE SCHOOL BOARDS 201 

members who represent them to get as m.uch out of the Govern- 
ment, and as little out of the rates, as possible, the School Boards 
will have a very strong motive for shaping the education they 
give, as nearly as may be, on the model which the Education 
Minister ojffers for their imitation, and for the copying of which 
he is prepared to pay. 

The Revised Code did not compel any schoolmaster to leave ofi 
teaching anything; but, by the very simple process of refusing to 
pay for many kinds of teaching, it has practically put an end to 
them. Mr. Forster is said to be engaged in revising the Revised 
Code; a successor of his may re-revise it — and there will be no 
sort of check upon these revisions and counter revisions, except 
the possibility of a Parliamentary debate, when the revised, or 
added, minutes are laid upon the table. What chance is there that 
any such debate will take place on a matter of detail relating to 
elementary education — a subject with which members of the 
Legislature, having been, for the most part, sent to our public 
schools, thirty years ago, have not the least practical acquaintance, 
and for which they care nothing, unless it derives a political value 
from its connection with sectarian politics? 

I cannot but think, then, that the School Boards will have the 
appearance, but not the reality, of freedom, of action, in regard to 
the subject-matter of what is commonly called " secular " educa- 
tion. 

As respects what is commonly called " religious " education, the 
power of the Minister of Education is even more despotic. An 
interest, almost amounting to pathos, attaches itself, in my mind, 
to the frantic exertions which are at present going on in almost 
every school division, to elect certain candidates whose names have 
never before been heard of in connection with education, and who 
are either sectarian partisans, or nothing. In my own particular 
division, a body organised ad hoc is moving heaven and earth to 
get the seven seats filled by seven gentlemen, four of whom are 
good Churchmen, and three no less good Dissenters. But why 
should this seven times heated fiery furnace of theological zeal be 
so desirous to shed its genial warmth over the London School 
Board? Can it be that these zealous sectaries mean to evade the 
solemn pledge given in the Act? 

" No religious catechism or religious formula which is distinctive of 
any particular denomination shall be taught in the school." 

I confess I should have thought it my duty to reject any such 
suggestion, as dishonouring to a number of worthy persons, if it 



202 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

had not been for a leading article and some correspondence which 
appeared in the Guardian. 

The Guardian is, as everybody knows, one of the best of the 
" religious " newspapers ; and, personally, I have every reason to 
speak highly of the fairness, and indeed kindness, with which the 
editor is good enough to deal with a writer who must, in many 
ways, be so objectionable to him as myself. I quote the following 
passages from a leading article on a letter of mine, therefore, with 
all respect, and with a genuine conviction that the course of con- 
duct advocated by the writer must appear to him in a very dif- 
ferent light from that under which I see it: — 

" The first of these points is the interpretation which Professor Huxley 
puts on the ' Cowper-Temple clause.' It is, in fact, that which we fore- 
told some time ago as likely to be forced upon it by those who think 
with him. The clause itself was one of those compromises which it is 
very difficult to define or to maintain logically. On the one side was 
the simple freedom to School Boards to establish what schools they 
pleased, which Mr. Forster originally gave, but against which the Non- 
conformists lifted up their voices, because they conceived it likely to give 
too much power to the Church. On the other side there was the propo- 
sition to make the schools secular — intelligible enough, but in the con- 
sideration of public opinion simply impossible — and there was the vague 
impracticable idea, which Mr. Gladstone thoroughly tore to pieces, of 
enacting that the teaching of all school-masters in the new schools should 
be strictly ' undenominational.' The Cowper-Temple clause was, we re- 
peat, proposed simply to tide over the difficulty. It was to satisfy the 
Nonconformists and the ' unsectarian,' as distinct from the secular party 
of the League, by forbidding all distinctive ' catechisms and formularies,' 
which might have the effect of openly assigning the schools to this or that 
religious body. It refused, at the same time, to attempt the impossible 
task of defining what was undenominational ; and its author even con- 
tended, if we understood him correctly, that it would in no way, even 
indirectly, interfere with the substantial teaching of any master in any 
school. This assertion we always believed to be untenable; we could not 
see how, in the face of this clause, a distinctly denominational tone could 
be honestly given to schools nominally general. But beyond this mere sug- 
gestion of an attempt at a general tone of comprehensiveness in religious 
teaching it was not intended to go, and only because such was its limita- 
tion was it accepted by the Government and by the House. 

" But now we are told that it is to be construed as doing precisely that 
which it refused to do. A ' formulary,' it seems, is a collection of formu- 
las, and formulas are simply propositions of whatever kind touching 
religious faith. All such propositions, if they cannot be accepted by all 
Christian denominations, are to be proscribed ; and it is added signifi- 
cantly that the Jews also are a denomination, and so that any teaching 
distinctively Christian is perhaps to be excluded, lest it should interfere 
with their freedom and rights. Are we then to fall back on the simple 



THE SCHOOL BOARDS 203 

reading of the letter of the Bible? No! this, it is granted, would be 
an ' unworthy pretence.' The teacher is to give ' grammatical, geograph- 
ical, or historical explanations ; ' but he is to keep clear of ' theology 
proper,' because, as Professor Huxley takes great pains to prove, there 
is no theological teaching which is not opposed by some sect or other, 
from Roman Catholicism on the one hand to Unitarianism on the other. 
It was not, perhaps, hard to see that this difficulty would be started ; 
and to those who, like Professor Huxley, look at it theoretically, without 
much practical experience of schools, it may appear serious or unan- 
swerable. But there is very little in it practically ; when it is faced de- 
terminately and handled firmly, it will soon shrink into its true dimen- 
sions. The class who are least frightened at it are the school teachers, 
simply because they know most about it. It is quite clear that the 
school managers must be cautioned against allowing their schools to be 
made places of proselytism ; but when this is done, the case is simple 
enough. Leave the masters under this general understanding to teach 
freely ; if there is ground of complaint, let it be made, but leave the onus 
probandi on the objectors. For extreme peculiarities of belief or unbelief 
there is the Conscience Clause ; as to the mass of parents, they will be 
more anxious to have religion taught than afraid of its assuming 
this or that particular shade. They will trust the school managers and 
teachers till they have reason to distrust them, and experience has shown 
that they may trust them safely enough. Any attempt to throw the 
burden of making the teaching undenominational upon the managers 
must be sternly resisted : it is simply evading the intentions of the Act 
in. an elaborate attempt to carry them out. We thank Professor Huxley 
for the warning. To be forwarned is to be forearmed." 

A good deal of light seems to me to be thrown on the practical 
significance of the opinions expressed in the foregoing extract by 
the following interesting letter, which appeared in the same 
paper : — 

" Sir, — I venture to send to you the substance of a correspondence 
with the Education Department upon the question of the lawfulness 
of religious teaching in rate schools under section 14 (2) of the Act. 
I asked whether the words ' which is distinctive,' etc., taken gram- 
matically as lirfeiting the prohibition of any religious formulary, might 
be construed as allowing (subject, however, to the other provisions of 
the Act) any religious formulary common to any two denominations 
anywhere in England to be taught in such schools ; and if practically 
the limit could not be so extended, but would have to be fixed according 
to the special circumstances of each district, then what degree of general 
acceptance in a district would exempt such a formulary from the pro- 
hibition? The answer to this was as follows: — 'It was understood," 
when clause 14 of the Education Act was discussed in the House of 
Commons, that, according to a well-known rule of interpreting Acts 
of Parliament, " denomination " must be held to include " denomina- 
tions," When any dispute is referred to the Education Department 



204 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

under the last paragraph of section 16, it will be dealt with according 
to the circumstances of the case.' 

" Upon my asking further if I might hence infer that the lawfulness 
of teaching any religious formulary in a rate school would thus depend 
exclusively on local circumstances, and would accordingly be so decided 
by the Education Department in case of dispute, I was informed in 
explanation that ' their lordships' ' letter was intended to convey to 
me that no general rule, beyond that stated in the first paragraph of 
their letter, could at present be laid down by them ; and that their 
decision in each particular case must depend on the special circumstances 
accompanying it. 

" I think it would appear from this that it may yet be in many cases 
both lawful and expedient to teach religious formularies in rate schools. 

H. I. 

Of course I do not mean to suggest that tlie editor of the Guar- 
dian is bound by the opinions of his correspondent; but I cannot 
help thinking that I do not misrepresent him, when I say that he 
also thinks " that it may yet be, in many cases, both lawful and 
expedient to teach religious formularies in rate schools under these 
circumstances." 

It is not uncharitable, therefore, to assume that, the express 
words of the Act of Parliament notwithstanding, all the sectaries 
who are toiling so hard for seats in the London School Board 
have the lively hope of the gentleman from Steyning, that it may 
be " both lawful and expedient to teach religious formularies in 
rate schools " ; and that they mean to do their utmost to bring this 
happy consummation about.* 

Now the pathetic emotion to which I have referred, as accom^ 
panying my contemplations of the violent struggles of so many 
excellent persons, is caused by the circumstance that, so far as I 
can judge, their labour is in vain. 

Supposing that the London School Board contains, as it prob- 
ably will do, a niiajority of sectaries; and that they carry over the 
heads of a minority, a resolution that certain theological formulas, 

* A passage in an article on the " Working of the Education Act," 
in the Saturday Review completely justifies this anticipation of the line 
of action which the sectaries mean to take. After commending the 
Liverpool compromise, the writer goes on to say : — 

" If this plan is fairly adopted in Liverpool, the fourteenth clause 
of the Act will in effect be restored to its original form, and the majority 
of the ratepayers in each district be permitted to decide to what denom- 
ination the school shall belong." 

In a previous paragraph the writer speaks of a possible " mistrust ' 
of one another by the members of the Board, and seems to anticipate 
" accusations of dishonesty." If any of the members of the Board adopt 
his views, I think it highly probable that he may turn out to be a true 
prophet. 



THE SCHOOL BOARDS 205 

about which they all happen to agree, — say, for example, the 
doctrine of the Trinity, — shall be taught in the schools. Do they 
fondly imagine that the minority will not at once dispute their 
interpretation of the Act, and appeal to the Education Depart- 
ment to settle that dispute ? And if so, do they suppose that any 
Minister of Education, who wants to keep his place, will tighten 
boundaries which the Legislature has left loose; and will give a 
" final decision " which shall be offensive to every Unitarian and 
to every Jew in the House of Commons, besides creating a prece- 
dent which will afterwards be used to the injury of every Non- 
conformist? The editor of the Guardian tells his friends sternly 
to resist every attempt to throw the burden of making the teach- 
ing undenominational on the managers, and thanks me for the 
warning I have given him. I return the thanks, with interest, 
for his warning, as to the course the party he represents intends 
to pursue, and for enabling me thus to draw public attention to a 
perfectly constitutional and effectual mode of checkmating them. 

And, in truth, it is wonderful to note the surprising entangle- 
ment into which our able editor gets himself in the struggle be- 
tween his native honesty and judgment and the necessities of his 
party. " We could not see," says he, " in the face of this clause 
how a distinct denominational tone could be honestly given to 
schools nominally general." There speaks the honest and clear- 
headed man. " Any attempt to throw the burden of making the 
teaching undenominational must be sternly resisted." There 
speaks the advocate holding a brief for his party. " Verily," as 
Trinculo says, " the monster hath two mouths :" the one, the for- 
ward mouth, tells us very justly that the teaching cannot " honest- 
ly " be " distinctly denominational " ; but the other, the backward 
mouth, asserts that it must by no manner of means be " undenom- 
inational." Putting the two utterances together, I can only in- 
terpret them to mean that the teaching is to be " indistinctly 
denominational." If the editor of the Guardian had not shown 
signs of anger at my use of the term " theological fog," I should 
have been tempted to suppose it m.ust have been what he had in his 
mind, under the name of " indistinct denominationalism." But 
this reading being plainly inadmissible, I can only imagine that 
he inculcates the teaching of formulas common to a number of 
denominations. 

But the Education Department has already told the gentleman 
from Steyning that any such proceeding will be illegal. "Ac- 
cording to a well-known rule of interpreting Acts of Parliament, 
^ denomination ' would be held to include ' denominations.' " In 
other words, we must read the Act thus: — 



206 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

" No religious catechism or religious formulary which is dis- 
tinctive of any particular denominations shall be taught." 

Thus we are really very much indebted to the editor of the 
Guardian and his correspondent. The one has shown us that 
the sectaries mean to try to get as much denominational teaching 
as they can agree upon among themselves, forced into the ele- 
mentary schools; while the other has obtained a formal declara- 
tion from the Educational Department that any such attempt will 
contravene the Act of Parliament, and that, therefore, the unsec- 
tarian, law-abiding members of the School Boards may safely 
reckon upon bringing down upon their opponents the heavy hand 
of the Minister of Education.* 

So much for the powers of the School Boards. Limited as 
they seem to be, it by no means follows that such Boards, if they 
are composed of intelligent and practical men, really more in 
earnest about education than about sectarian squabbles, may not 
exert a very great amount of influence. And, from many cir- 
cumstances, this is especially likely to be the case with the London 
School Board, which, if it conducts itself wisely, may become a 
true educational parliament, as subordinate in authority to the 
Minister of Education, theoretically, as the Legislature is to the 
Crown, and yet, like the Legislature, possessed of great practical 
authority. And I suppose that no Minister of Education would 
be other than glad to have the aid of the deliberations of such a 
body, or fail to pay careful attention to its recommendations. 

What, then, ought to be the nature and scope of the education 
which a School Board should endeavour to give to every child un- 
der its influence, and for which it should try to obtain the aid of 
the parliamentary grants? In my judgment it should include at 
least the following kinds of instruction and of discipline: — 

1. Physical training and drill, as part of the regular business of 
the school. 

It is impossible to insist too much on the importance of this 
part of education for the children of the poor of great towns. All 
the conditions of their lives are unfavourable to their- physical 
well-being. They are badly lodged, badly housed, badly fed, and 
live from one year's end to another in bad air, without chance of 

* Since this paragraph was written, Mr. Forster, in speaking at the 
Birkbeck Institution, has removed all doubts as to what his " final 
decision " will be in the case of such disputes being referred to him : — • 
" I have the fullest confidence that in the reading and explaining of 
the Bible, what the children will be taught will be the great truths of 
Christian life and conduct, which all of us desire they should know, 
and that no effort will be made to cram into their poor little minds, 
theological dogmas which their tender age prevents them from under- 
standing." 



THE SCHOOL BOARDS 207 

a change. They have no play-grounds; they amuse themselves 
with marbles and chuck-farthing, instead of cricket or hare-and- 
hounds; and if it were not for the wonderful instinct which leads 
all poor children of tender years to run under the feet of cab-horses 
whenever they can, I know not how they would learn to use their 
limbs with agility. 

Now there is no real difficulty about teaching drill and the 
simpler kinds of gymnastics. It is done admirably well, for ex- 
ample, in the North Surrey Union schools; and a year or two 
ago when I had an opportunity of inspecting these schools, I was 
greatly struck with the effect of such training upon the poor little 
waifs and strays of humanity, mostly picked out of the gutter, who 
are being made into cleanly, healthy, and useful members of so- 
ciety in that excellent institution. 

Whatever doubts people may entertain about the efficacy of 
natural selection^, there can be none about artificial selection; and 
the breeder who should attempt to make, or keep up, a fine stock 
of pigs, or sheep, under the conditions to which the children of 
the poor are exposed, would be the laughing-stock even of the 
bucolic mind. Parliament has already done something in this 
direction by declining to be an accomplice in the asphyxiation of 
school children. It refuses to make any grant to a school in which 
the cubical contents of the school-room are inadequate to allow 
of proper respiration. I should like to see it make another step 
in the same direction, and either refuse to give a grant to a 
school in which physical training is not a part of the programme, 
or, at any rate, offer to pay upon such training. If something of 
the kind is not done, the English physique, which has been, and is 
still, on the whole, a grand one, will become as extinct as the 
dodo in the great towns. 

And then the moral and intellectual effect of drill, as an intro- 
duction to, and aid of, all other sorts of training, must not be 
overlooked. If you want to break in a colt, surely the first thing 
to do is to catch him and get him quietly to face his trainer; to 
know his voice and bear his hand; to learn that colts have some- 
thing else to do with their heels than to kick them up whenever 
they feel so inclined; and to discover that the dreadful human 
figure has no desire to devour, or even to beat him, but that, in 
case of attention and obedience, he may hope for patting and even 
a sieve of oats. 

But, your " street Arabs," and other neglected poor children, 
are rather worse and wilder than colts; for the reason that the 
horse-colt has only his animal instincts in him, and his mother, 
the mare, has been always tender over him,, and never came home 



208 SCIE2sCE AND EDUCATION 

drunk ana kicked him in her life; while the man-colt is inspired 
by that very real devil, perverted manhood, and his mother may 
have done all that and more. So, on the whole, it may probably 
be even more expedient to begin your attempt to get at the higher 
nature of the child, than at that of the colt, from the physical 
side. 

2. Next in order to physical training I put the instruction of 
children, and especially of girls, in the elements of household 
work and of domestic economy; in the first place for their own 
sakes, and in the second for that of their future employers. 

Every one who knows anything of the life of the English poor 
is aware of the misery and waste caused by their want of knowl- 
edge of domestic economy, and by their lack of habits of frugality 
and method. I suppose it is no exaggeration to say that a poor 
Frenchwoman would make the money which the wife of a poor 
Englishman spends in food go twice as far, and at the same time 
turn out twice as palatable a dinner. Why Englishmen, who are 
so notoriously fond of good living, should be so hopelessly incom- 
petent in the art of cookery, is one of the great mysteries of 
nature; but from the varied abominations of the railway refresh- 
ment-rooms to the monotonous dinners of the poor, English feed- 
ing is either wasteful or nasty, or both. 

And as to domestic service, the groans of the housewives of 
England ascend to heaven ! In five cases out of six the girl who 
takes a " place " has to be trained by her mistress in the first 
rudiments of decency and ojder; and it is a mercy if she does not 
turn up her nose at anything like the mention of an honest and 
proper economy. Thousands of young girls are said to starve, 
or worse, yearly in London; and at the same time thousands of 
mistresses of households are ready to pay high wages for a decent 
housemaid, or cook, or a fair workwoman; and can by no means 
get what they want. 

Surely, if the elementary schools are worth anything, they may 
put an end to a state of things which is demoralising the poor, 
while it is wasting the lives of those better off in small worries and 
annoyances. 

3. But the boys and girls for whose education the School Boards 
have to provide, have not merely to discharge domestic duties, but 
each of them is a member of a social and political organisation 
of great complexity, and has, in future life, to fit himself into 
that organisation, or be crushed by it. To this end it is surely 
needful, not only that they should be made acquainted with the 
elementary laws of conduct, but that their affections should be 
trained, so as to love with all their hearts that conduct which 



THE SCHOOL BOARDS 209 

tends to the attainment of the highest good for themselves and 
their fellow men, and to hate with all their hearts that opposite 
course of action which is fraught with evil. 

So far as the laws of conduct are determined by the intellect, 
I apprehend that they belong to science, and to that part of science 
which is called morality. But the engagement of the affections 
in favour of that particular kind of conduct which we call good, 
seems to me to be something quite beyond mere science. And I 
cannot but think that it, together with the awe and reverence, 
which have no kinship with base fear, but arise whenever one 
tries to pierce below the surface of things, whether they be ma- 
terial or spiritual, constitutes all that has any unchangeable 
reality in religion. 

And just as I think it would be a mistake to confound the 
science, morality, with the affection, religion; so do I conceive it 
to be a most lamentable and mischievous error, that the science, 
theology, is so confounded in the minds of many — indeed, I 
might say, of the majority of men. 

I do not express any opinion as to whether theology is a true 
science, or whether it does not come under the apostolic definition 
of " science falsely so called " ; though I may be permitted to ex- 
press the belief that if the Apostle to whom that much misapplied 
phrase is due could make the acquaintance of much of modern 
theology, he would not hesitate a moment in declaring that it is 
exactly what he meant the words to denote. 

But it is at any rate conceivable, that the nature of the Deity, 
and his relations to the universe, and more especially to man- 
kind, are capable of being ascertained, either inductively or de- 
ductively, or by both processes. And, if they have been ascer- 
tained, then a body of science has been formed which is very 
properly called theology. 

Further, there can be no doubt that affection for the Being thus 
defined and described by theologic science would be properly 
termed religion; but it would not be the whole of religion. The 
affection for the ethical ideal defined by moral science would 
claim equal if not superior rights. For suppose theology estab- 
lished the existence of an evil deity — and some theologies, even 
Christian ones, have come very near this, — is the religious affec- 
tion to be transferred from the ethical ideal to any such om- 
nipotent demon? I trow not. Better a thousand times that the 
human race should perish under his thunderbolts than it should 
say, " Evil, be thou my good." 

There is nothing new, that I know of, in this statement of the 
relations of religion with the science of morality on the one hand 



210 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

and that of theology on the other. But I believe it to be alto- 
gether true, and very needful, at this time, to be clearly and 
emphatically recognised as such, by those who have to deal with 
the education question. 

We are divided into two parties — the advocates of so-called 
" religious " teaching on the one hand, and those of so-called 
" secular " teaching on the other. And both parties seem to me 
to be not only hopelessly wrong, but in such a position that if 
either succeeded completely, it would discover, before many years 
were over, that it had made a great mistake and done serious evil 
to the cause of education. 

For, leaving aside the more far-seeing minority on each side, 
what the " religious " party is crying for is mere theology, under 
the name of religion ; while the " secularists " have unwisely and 
wrongfully admitted the assumption of their opponents, and de- 
mand the abolition of all " religious " teaching, when they only 
want to be free of theology — Burning your ship to get rid of the 
cockroaches ! 

But my belief is, that no human being, and no society com- 
posed of human beings, ever did, or ever will, come to much, 
unless their conduct was governed and guided by the love of some 
ethical idea. Undoubtedly, your gutter child may be converted by 
mere intellectual drill into " the subtlest of all the beasts of the 
field"; but we know what has become of the original of that de- 
scription, and there is no need to increase the number of those 
who imitate him successfully without being aided by the rates. 
And if I were compelled to choose for one of my own children, be- 
tween a school in which real religious instruction is given, and 
one without it, I should prefer the former, even though the child 
might have to take a good deal of theology with it. Nine-tenths 
of a dose of bark is mere half -rotten wood; but one swallows it 
for the sake of the particles of quinine, the beneficial effect of 
which may be weakened, but is not destroyed, by the wooden dilu- 
tion, unless in a few cases of exceptionally tender stomachs. 

Hence, when the great mass of the English people declare that 
they want to have the children in the elementary schools taught 
the Bible, and when it is plain from the terms of the Act, the de- 
bates in and out of Parliament, and especially the emphatic 
declarations of the Vice-President of the Council, that it was 
intended that such Bible-reading should be permitted, unless good 
cause for prohibiting it could be shown, I do not see what reason 
there is for opposing that wish. Certainly, I, individually, could 
with no shadow of consistency oppose the teaching of the children 
of other people to do that which my own children are taught to 



THE SCHOOL BOARDS 211 

do. And, even if the reading the Bible were not, as I think 
it is, consonant with political reason and justice, and with a 
desire to act in the spirit of the education measure, I am dis- 
posed to think it might still be well to read that book in the ele- 
mentary schools. 

I have always been strongly in favour of secular education, in 
the sense of education without theology; but I must confess I 
have been no less seriously perplexed to know by what practical 
measures the religious feeling, which is the essential basis of con- 
duct, was to be kept up, in the present utterly chaotic state of 
opinion on these matters, without the use of the Bible. The 
Pagan moralists lack life and colour, and even the noble Stoic, 
Marcus Aurelius, is too high and refined for an ordinary child. 
Take the Bible as a whole; make the severest deductions which 
fair criticism can dictate for shortcomings and positive errors; 
eliminate, as a sensible lay-teacher would do, if left to himself, 
all that it is not desirable for children to occupy themselves with; 
and there still remains in this old literature a vast residuum 
of moral beauty and grandeur. And then consider the great his- 
torical fact that, for three centuries, this book has been woven 
into the life of all that is best and noblest in English history; 
that it has become the national epic of Britain, and is as familian 
to noble and simple, from John-o'-Groat's House to Land's End, 
as Dante and Tasso once were to the Italians; that it is written 
in the noblest and purest English, and abounds in exquisite 
beauties of mere literary form; and, finally, that it forbids the 
veriest hind who never left his village to be ignorant of the ex- 
istence of other countries and other civilisations, and of a great 
past, stretching back to the furthest limits of the oldest nations 
in the world. By the study of what other book could children 
be so much humanised and made to feel that each figure in that 
vast historical procession fills, like themselves, but a momentary 
space in the interval between two eternities ; and earns the blessings 
or the curses of all time, according to its effort to do good and 
hate evil, even as they also are earning their payment for their 
work? 

On the whole, then, I am in favour of reading the Bible, with 
such grammatical, geographical, and historical explanations by a 
lay-teacher as may be needful, with rigid exclusion of any further 
theological teaching than that contained in the Bible itself. And 
in stating what this is, the teacher would do well not to go be- 
yond the precise words of the Bible; for if he does, he will, in the 
first place, undertake a task beyond his strength, seeing that all 
the Jewish and Christian sects have been at work upon that sub- 



212 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

ject for more than two thousand years, and have not yet arrived, 
and are not in the least likely to arrive, at an agreement; and, in 
the second place, he will certainly begin to teach something dis- 
tinctively denominational, and thereby come into violent collision 
with the Act of Parliament. 

4. The intellectual training to be given in the elementary 
schools must of course, in the first place, consist in learning to 
use the means of acquiring knowledge, or reading, writing, and 
arithmetic; and it will be a great matter to teach reading so 
completely that the act shall have become easy and pleasant. If 
reading remains " hard," that accomplishment will not be much 
resorted to for instruction, and still less for amusement — which 
last is one of its most valuable uses to hard-worked people. But 
along with a due proficiency in the use of the means of learning, 
a certain amount of knowledge, of intellectual discipline, and of 
artistic training should be conveyed in the elementary schools; 
and in this direction — for reasons which I am afraid to repeat, 
having urged them so often — I can conceive no subject-matter of 
education so appropriate and so important as the rudiments of 
physical science, with drawing, modelling, and singing. Not only 
would such teaching afford the best possible preparation for the 
technical schools about which so much is now said, but the organi- 
sation for carrying it into effect already exists. The Science and 
Art Department, the operations of which have already attained 
considerable magTiitude, not only offers to examine and pay the 
results of such examination in elementary science and art, but it 
provides what is still more important, viz. a means of giving chil- 
dren of high natural ability, who are just as abundant among 
the poor as among the rich, a helping hand. A good old proverb 
tells us that " One should not take a razor to cut a block :" the 
razor is soon spoiled, and the block is not so well cut as it would 
be with a hatchet. But it is worse economy to prevent a possible 
Watt from being anything but a stoker, or to give a possible Fara- 
day no chance of doing anything but to bind books. Indeed, the 
loss in such cases of mistaken vocation has no measure; it is abso- 
lutely infinite and irreparable. And among the arguments in 
favour of the interference of the State in education, none seems 
to be stronger than this — that it is the interest of every one that 
ability should be neither wasted, nor misapplied, by any one : and, 
therefore, that every one's representative, the State, is neces- 
sarily fulfilling the wishes of its constituents when it is helping 
the capacities to reach their proper places. 

It may be said that the scheme of education here sketched is too 
large to be effected in the time during which the children will 



THE SCHOOL BOARDS 213 

remain at school ; and, secondly, that even if this objection did not 
exist, it would cost too much. 

I attach no inxportance whatever to the first objection until the 
experiment has been fairly tried. Considering how much cate- 
chism, lists of the kings of Israel, geography of Palestine, and the 
like, children are made to swallow now, I cannot believe there will 
be any difficulty in inducing them to go through the physical 
training, which is more than half play; or the instruction in 
household work, or in those duties to one another and to them- 
selves, which have a daily and hourly practical interest. That 
children take kindly to elementary science and art no one can 
doubt who has tried the experiment properly. And if Bible- 
reading is not accompanied by constraint and solemnity, as if it 
were a sacramental operation, I do not believe there is anything 
in which children take more pleasure. At least I know that some 
of the pleasantest recollections of my childhood are connected 
with the voluntary study of an ancient Bible which belonged to 
my grandmother. There were splendid pictures in it, to be sure; 
but I recollect little or nothing about them save a portrait 
of the high priest in his vestments. What come vividly back on 
my mind are remembrances of my delight in the histories of 
Joseph and of David; and of my keen appreciation of the chival- 
rous kindness of Abraham in his dealing with Lot. Like a sud- 
den flash there returns back upon me, my utter scorn of the 
pettifogging meanness of Jacob, and my sympathetic grief over 
the heartbreaking lamentation of the cheated Esau, " Hast thou 
not a blessing for me also, O my father?" And I see, as in a 
cloud, pictures of the grand phantasmagoria of the Book of Keve- 
lation. 

I enumerate, as they issue, the childish impressions which come 
crowding out of the pigeon-holes in my brain, in which they 
have lain almost undisturbed for forty years. I prize them as 
an evidence that a child of five or six years old, left to his own 
devices, may be deeply interested in the Bible, and draw sound 
moral sustenance from it. And I rejoice that I was left to deal 
with the Bible alone ; for if I had had some theological " ex- 
plainer " at my side, he might have tried, as such do, to lessen 
my indignation against Jacob, and thereby have warped my moral 
sense for ever; while the great apocalyptic spectacle of the ulti- 
mate triumph of right and justice might have been turned to the 
base purposes of a pious lampooner of the Papacy. 

And as to the second objection — costliness — the reply is, first, 
that the rate and the Parliamentary grant together ought to be 
enough, considering that science and art teaching is already pro- 



214 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

vided for; and, secondly, that if they are not, it may be well for 
the educational parliament to consider what has become of those 
endowments which were originally intended to be devoted, more 
or less largely, to the education of the poor. 

When the monasteries were spoiled, some of their endowments 
were applied to the foundation of cathedrals; and in all such 
cases it was ordered that a certain portion of the endowment 
should be applied to the purposes of education. How much is 
so applied? Is that which may be so applied given to help the 
poor, who cannot pay for education, or does it virtually subsidise 
the comparatively rich, who can? How are Christ's Hospital and 
Alleyn's foundation securing their right purposes, or how far are 
they perverted into contrivances for affording relief to the classes 
who can afford to pay for education? How — But this paper is 
already too long, and, if I begin, I may find it hard to stop asking 
questions of this kind, which after all are worthy only of the lowest 
of Radicals. 



TECHNICAL EDUa\TION 215 



XVI. 
TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 

ANY candid observer of the phenomena of modern society 
will readily admit that bores must be classed among the 
enemies of the human race; and a little consideration will 
probably lead him to the further admission, that no species of that 
extensive genus of noxious creatures is more objectionable than 
the educational bore. Convinced as I am of the truth of this 
great social generalisation, it is not without a certain trepidation 
that I venture to address you on an educational topic. For, in the 
course of the last ten years, to go back no farther, I am afraid to 
say how often I have ventured to speak of education, from that 
given in the primary schools to that which is to be had in the uni- 
versities and medical colleges; indeed, the only part of this wide 
region into which, as yet, I have not adventured is that into which 
I propose to intrude to-day. 

Thus, I cannot but be aware that I am dangerously near be- 
coming the thing which all men fear and fly. But I have delib- 
erately elected to run the risk. For whei. you did me the honour 
to ask me to address you, an unexpected circumstance had led me 
to occupy myself seriously with the question of technical educa- 
tion; and I had acquired the conviction that there are few sub- 
jects respecting which it is more important for all classes of the 
community to have clear and just ideas than this; while, certain- 
ly, there is none which is more deserving of attention by the 
Working Men's Club and Institute Union. 

It is not for me to express an opinion whether the considera- 
tions, which I am about to submit to you, will be proved by 
experience to be just or not, but I will do my best to make them 
clear. Among the many good things to be found in Lord Bacon's 
works, none is more full of wisdom than the saying that " truth 
more easily comes out of error than out of confusion." Clear and 
consecutive wrong-thinking is the next best thing to right-think- 
ing; so that, if I succeed in clearing your ideas on this topic, I 
shall have wasted neither your time nor my own. 



216 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

" Technical education," in the sense in which the term is ordi- 
narily used, and in which I am now employing it, means that sort 
of education which is specially adapted to the needs of men whose 
business in life it is to pursue some kind of handicraft; it is, in 
fact, a fine Greco-Latin equivalent for what in good vernacular 
English would be called the " teaching of handicrafts." And prob- 
ably, at this stage of our progress, it may occur to many of you 
to think of the story of the cobbler and his last, and to say to your- 
selves, though you will be too polite to put the question openly to 
me. What does the speaker know practically about this matter? 
What is his handicraft? I think the question is a very proper 
one, and unless I were prepared to answer it, I hope satisfactorily, 
I should have chosen some other theme. 

The fact is, I am, and have been, any time these thirty years, a 
man who works with his hands — a handicraftsman. I do not 
say this in the broadly metaphorical sense in which fine gentle- 
men, with all the delicacy of Agag about them, trip to the hust- 
ings about election time, and protest that they too are working 
men. I really mean my words to be taken in their direct, literal, 
and straightforward sense. In fact, if the most nimble-fingered 
watchmaker among you will come to my workshop, he may set me 
to put a watch together, and I will set him to dissect, say, a 
blackbeetle's nerves. I do not wish to vaunt, but I am inclined to 
think that I shall manage my job to his satisfaction sooner than he 
will do his piece of work to mine. 

In truth, anatomy, which is my handicraft, is one of the most 
difficult kinds of mechanical labour, involving, as it does, not only 
lightness and dexterity of hand, but sharp eyes and endless pa- 
tience. And you must not suppose that my particular branch of 
science is especially distinguished for the demand it makes upon 
skill in manipulation. A similar requirement is m^de upon all 
students of physical science. The astronomer, the electrician, the 
chemist, the mineralogist, the botanist, are constantly called up- 
on to perform manual operations of exceeding delicacy. The 
progress of all branches of physical science depends upon observa- 
tion, or on that artificial observation which is termed experiment, 
of one kind or another; and, the farther we advance, the more 
practical difficulties surround the investigation of the conditions 
of the problems offered to us ; so that mobile and yet steady hands, 
guided by clear vision, are more and more in request in the work- 
shops of science. 

Indeed, it has struck me that one of the grounds of that sym- 
pathy between the handicraftsmen of this country and the men of 
science, by which it has so often been my good fortune to profit. 



TECHNICAL EDUCATION 217 

may, perhaps, lie here. You feel and we feel that, among the so- 
called learned folks, we alone are brought into contact with 
tangible facts in the way that you are. You know well enough 
that it is one thing to write a history of chairs in general, or to 
address a poem to a throne, or to speculate about the occult pow- 
ers of the chair of St. Peter ; and quite another thing to make with 
your own hands a veritable chair, that will stand fair and square, 
and alford a safe and satisfactory resting-place to a frame of 
sensitiveness and solidity. 

So it is with us, when we look out from our scientific handi- 
crafts upon the doings of our learned brethren, whose work is un- 
trammelled by anything " base and mechanical," as handicrafts 
used to be called when the world was younger, and, in some re- 
spects, less wise than now. We take the greatest interest in their 
pursuits; we are edified by their histories and are charmed with 
their poems, which sometimes illustrate so remarkably the powers 
of man's imagination ; some of us admire and even humbly try 
to follow them in their high philosophical excursions, though we 
know the risk of being snubbed by the inquiry whether grovelling 
dissectors of monkeys and blackbeetles can hope to enter into the 
empyreal kingdom of speculation. But still we feel that our busi- 
ness is different; humbler if you will, though, the diminution of 
dignity is, perhaps, compensated by the increase of reality; and 
that we, like you, have to get our work done in a region where 
little avails, if the power of dealing with practical tangible facts 
is wanting. You know that clever talk touching joinery will 
not make a chair; and I know that it is of about as much value 
in the physical sciences. Mother Nature is serenely obdurate to 
honeyed words ; only those who understand the ways of things, and 
can silently and effectually handle them, get any good out of her. 

And now, having, as I hope, justified my assumption of a place 
among handicraftsmen, and jmt myself right with you as to my 
qualification, from practical knowledge, to speak about technical 
education, I will proceed to lay before you the results of my expe- 
rience as a teacher of a handicraft, and tell you what sort of 
education I should think best adapted for a boy whom one wanted 
to make a professional anatomist. 

I should say, in the first place, let him have a good English 
elementary education. I do not mean that he shall be ahh to 
pass in such and such a standard — that may or may not be 
an equivalent expression — but that his teaching shall have been 
such as to have given him command of the common imple- 
ments of learning and to have created a desire for the things of the 
understanding. 



218 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

Further, I should like him to know the elements of physical 
science, and especially of physics and chemistry, and I should 
take care that this elementary knowledge was real. I should like 
my aspirant to be able to read a scientific treatise in Latin, 
French, or German, because an enormous amount of anatomical 
knowledge is locked up in those languages. And especially, I 
should require some ability to draw — I do not mean artistically, 
for that is a gift which may be cultivated but cannot be learned, 
but with fair accuracy. I will not say that everybody can learn 
even this; for the negative development of the faculty of drawing 
in some people is almost miraculous. Still everybody, or almjost 
everybody, can learn to write; and, as writing is a kind of draw- 
ing, I suppose that the majority of the people who say they cannot 
draw, and give copious evidence of the accuracy of their assertion, 
could draw, after a fashion, if they tried. And that " after a 
fashion " would be better than nothing for my purposes. 

Above all things, let my imaginary pupil have preserved the 
freshness and vigour of youth in his mind as well as his body. 
The educational abomination of desolation of the present day is 
the stimulation of young people to work at high pressure by in- 
cessant competitive examinations. Some wise man (who probably 
was not an early riser) has said of early risers in general, that 
they are conceited all the forenoon and stupid all the afternoon. 
Now whether this is true of early risers in the common acceptation 
of the word or not, I will not pretend to say; but it is too often 
true of the unhappy children who are forced to rise too early in 
their classes. They are conceited all the forenoon of life> and 
stupid all its afternoon. The vigour and freshness, which should 
have been stored up for the purposes of the hard struggle for exist- 
ence in practical life, have been washed out of them by precocious 
mental debauchery — by book gluttony and lesson bibbing. Their 
faculties are worn out by the strain put upon their callow brains, 
and they are demoralised by worthless childish triumphs before 
the real work of life begins. I have no compassion for sloth, but 
youth has more need for intellectual rest than age ; and the cheer- 
fulness, the tenacity of purpose, the power of work which make 
many a successful man what he is, must often be placed to the 
credit, not of his hours of industry, but to that of his hours of 
idleness, in boyhood. Even the hardest worker of us all, if he has 
to deal with anything above mere details, will do well, now and 
again, to let his brain lie fallow for a space. The next crop of 
thought will certainly be all the fuller in the ear and the weeds 
fewer. 

This is the sort of education which I should like any one who 



TECHNICAL EDUCATION 219 

was going to devote himself to my handicraft to undergo. As 
to knowing anything about anatomy itself, on the whole I would 
rather he left that alone until he took it up seriously in my labor- 
atory. It is hard work enough to teach, and I should not like 
to have superadded to that the possible need of unteaching. 

Well, but, you will say, this is Hamlet with the Prince of 
Denmark left out ; your " technical education " is simply a good 
education, with more attention to physical science, to drawing, and 
to modern languages than is common, and there is nothing specially 
technical about it. 

Exactly so ; that remark takes us straight to the heart of what 
I have to say; which is, that, in my judgment, the preparatory 
education of the handicraftsman ought to have nothing of what 
is ordinarily understood by " technical " about it. 

The workshop is the only real school for a handicraft. The 
education which precedes that of the workshop should be entirely 
devoted to the strengthening of the body, the elevation of the 
moral faculties, and the cultivation of the intelligence; and, 
especially, to the imbuing the mind with a broad and clear view 
of the laws of that natural world with the components of which 
the handicraftsman will have to deal. And, the earlier the period 
of life at which the handicraftsman has to enter into actual prac- 
tice of his craft, the more important is it that he should devote 
the precious hours of preliminary education to things of the 
mind, which have no direct and immediate bearing on his branch 
of industry, though they lie at the foundation of all realties. 

Now let me apply the lessons I have learned from my handicraft 
to yours. If any of you were obliged to take an apprentice, 
I suppose you would like to get a good healthy lad, ready and 
willing to learn, handy, and with his fingers not all thumbs, as 
the saying goes. You would like that he should read, write, and 
cipher well; and, if you were an intelligent master, and your 
trade involved the application of scientific principles, as so many 
trades do, you would like him to know enough of the elementary 
principles of science to understand what was going on. I sup- 
pose that, in nine trades out of ten, it would be useful if he could 
draw; and many of you must have lamented your inability to find 
out for yourselves what foreigners are doing or have done. So 
that some knowledge of French and German might, in many 
cases, be very desirable. 

So it appears to me that what you want is pretty much what 
I want; and the practical question is, How you are to get what 



220 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

you need, under the actual limitations and conditions of life of 
handicraftsmen in this country? 

I think I shall have the assent both of the employers of labour 
and of the employed as to one of these limitations; which is, that 
no scheme of technical education is likely to be seriously enter- 
tained which will delay the entrance of boys into working life, or 
prevent them from contributing towards their own support, as 
early as they do at present. Not only do I believe that any such 
scheme could not be carried out, but I doubt its desirableness, 
even if it were practicable. 

The period between childhood and manhood is full of difficulties 
and dangers, under the most favourable circumstances; and, even 
among the well-to-do, who can afford to surround their children 
with the most favourable conditions, examples of a career ruined, 
before it has well begun, are but too frequent. Moreover, those 
who have to live by labour must be shaped to labour early. The 
colt that is left at grass too long makes but a sorry draught- 
horse, though his way of life does not bring him within the 
reach of artificial temptations. Perhaps the most valuable result 
of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you 
have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not; 
it is the first lesson that ought to be learned; and, however early 
a man's training begins, it is probably the last lesson that he learns 
thoroughly. 

There is another reason, to which I have already adverted, and 
which I would reiterate, why any extension of the time devoted to 
ordinary school-work is undesirable. In the newly-awakened zeal 
for education, we run some risk of forgetting the truth that while 
under-instruction is a bad thing, over-instruction may possibly be 
a worse. 

Success in any kind of practical life is not dependent solely, or 
indeed chiefly, upon knowledge. Even in the learned professions, 
knowledge alone, is of less consequence than people are apt to 
suppose. And, if much expenditure of bodily energy is involved 
in the day's work, mere knowledge is of still less importance 
when weighed against the probable cost of its acquirement. To 
do a fair day's work with his hands, a man needs, above all things, 
health, strength, and the patience and cheerfulness which, if they 
do not always accompany these blessings, can hardly in the nature 
of things exist without them; to which we must add honesty 
of purpose and a pride in doing what is done well. 

A good handicraftsman can get on very well without genius, 
but he will fare badly without a reasonable share of that which 
is a more useful possession for a workaday life, namely, mother- 



TECHNICAL EDUCATION 221 

wit; and he will be all the better for a real knowledge., however 
limited, of the ordinary laws of nature, and especially those which 
apply to his own business. 

Instruction carried so far as to help the scholar to turn his 
store of mother-wit to account, to acquire a fair amount of sound 
elementary knowledge, and to use his hands and eyes, while leaving 
him fresh, vigorous, and with a sense of the dignity of his own 
calling, whatever it may be, if fairly and honestly pursued, 
cannot fail to be of invaluable service to all those who come 
under its influence. 

But, on the other hand, if school instruction is carried so far as 
to encourage bookishness; if the ambition of the scholar is direct- 
ed, not to the gaining of knowledge, but to the being able to 
pass examinations successfully; especially if encouragement is 
given to the mischievous delusion that brainwork is, in itself, and 
apart from its quality, a nobler or more respectable thing than 
handiwork — such education may be a deadly mischief to the 
workman, and lead to the rapid ruin of the industries it is in- 
tended to serve. 

I know that I am expressing the opinion of some of the largest 
as well as the most enlightened employers of labour, when I say 
that there is a real danger that, from the extreme of no education, 
we may run to the other extreme of over-education of handicrafts- 
men. And I apprehend that what is true for the ordinary hand- 
worker is true for the foreman. Activity, probity, knowledge of 
men, ready mother-wit supplemented by a good knowledge of 
the general principles involved in his business, are the making of 
a good foreman. If he possess these qualities, no amount of learn- 
ing will fit him better for his position; while the course of 
life and the habit of mind required for the attainment of such 
learning may, in various direct and indirect ways, act as disquali- 
fications for it. 

Keeping in mind, then, that the two things to be avoided are, 
the delay of the entrance of boys into practical life, and the 
substitution of exhausted bookworms for shrewd, handy men, in 
our works and factories, let us consider what may be wisely and 
safely attempted in the way of improving the education of the 
handicraftsman. 

First, I look to the elementary schools now happily established 
all over the country. I am not going to criticise or find fault 
with them; on the contrary, their establishment seems to me 
to be the most important and the most beneficial result of the 
corporate action of the people in our day. A great deal is said 
of British interests just now, but, depend upon it, that no Eastern 



222 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

difficulty needs our intervention as a nation so seriously, as the 
putting down both the Bashi-Bazouks of ignorance and the Cos- 
sacks of sectarianism) at home. What has already been achieved 
in these directions is a great thing ; you must have lived some time 
to know how great. An education, better in its processes, better 
in its substance, than that which was accessible to the great 
majority of well-to-do Britons a quarter of a century ago, is now 
obtainable by every child in the land. Let any man of my age go 
into an ordinary elementary school, and unless he was unusually 
fortunate in his youth, he will tell you that the educational 
method, the intelligence, patience, and good temper on the teach- 
er's part, which are now at the disposal of the veriest waifs and 
wastrels of society, are things of which he had no experience in 
those costly, middle-class schools, which were so ingeniously con- 
trived as to combine all the evils and shortcomings of the great 
public schools with none of their advantages. Many a man, whose 
so-called education cost a good deal of valuable money and occu- 
pied many a year of invaluable time, leaves the inspection of a 
well-ordered elementary school devoutly wishing that, in his 
young days, he had had the chance of being as well taught as these 
boys and girls are. 

But while in view of such an advance in general education, I 
willingly obey the natural impulse to be thankful, I am not 
willing altogether to rest. I want to see instruction in elementary 
science and in art more thoroughly incorporated in the educa- 
tional system. At present, it is being administered by driblets, as 
if it were a potent medicine, " a few drops to be taken occa- 
sionally in a teaspoon." Every year I notice that that earnest 
and untiring friend of yours and of mine. Sir John Lubbock, stirs 
up the Government of the day in the House of Commons on this 
subject ; and also that, every year, he, and the few members of the 
House of Commons, such as Dr. Playfair, who sympathise with 
him, are met with expressions of warm admiration for science in 
general, and reasons at large for doing nothing in particular. But 
now that Mr. Forster, to whom the education of the country owes so 
much, has announced his conversion to the right faith, I begin to 
hope that, sooner or later, things will mend. 

I have given what I believe to be a good reason for the as- 
sumption, that the keeping at school of boys, who are to be handi- 
craftsmen, beyond the age of thirteen or fourteen is neither prac- 
ticable nor desirable; and, as it is quite certain, that, with justice 
to other and no less important branches of education, nothing 
more than the rudiments of science and art teaching can be 
introduced into elementary schools, we must seek elsewhere for a 



TECHNICAL EDUCATION 223 

supplementary training in these subjects, and, if need be, in 
foreign languages, which, may go on after the workman's life has 
begun. 

The means of acquiring the scientific and artistic part of this 
training already exists in full working order, in the first place, 
in the classes of the Science and Art Department, which are, for 
the most part, held in the evening, so as to be accessible to all 
who choose to avail themselves of them after working hours. 
The great advantage of these classes is that they bring the 
means of instruction to the doors of the factories and workshops; 
that they are no artificial creations, but by their very existence 
prove the desire of the people for them; and finally, that they 
admit of indefinite development in proportion as they are wanted. 
I have often expressed the opinion, and I repeat it here, that, dur- 
ing the eighteen years they have been in existence these classes 
have done incalculable good; and I can say, of my own knowl- 
edge, that the Department spares no pains and trouble in trying 
to increase their usefulness and ensure the soundness of their 
work. 

No one knows better than my friend Colonel Donnelly, to 
whose clear views and great administrative abilities so much of 
the successful working of the science classes is due, that there 
is much to be done before the system can be said to be thoroughly 
satisfactory. The instruction given needs to be made more sys- 
tematic and especially more practical; the teachers are of very 
unequal excellence, and not a few stand much in need of instruc- 
tion themselves, not only in the subject which they teach, but 
in the objects for which they teach. I dare say you have heard 
of that proceeding, reprobated by all true sportsmen, which is 
called " shooting for the pot." Well, there is such a thing as 
" teaching for the pot " — teaching, that is, not that your scholar 
may know, but that he may count for payment among those who 
pass the examination; and there are some teachers, happily not 
many, who have yet to learn that the examiners of the Department 
regard them as poachers of the worst description. 

Without presuming in any way to speak in the name of the 
Department, I think I may say, as a matter which has come under 
my own observation, that it is doing its best to meet all these diffi- 
culties. It systematically promotes practical instruction in the 
classes; it affords facilities to teachers who desire to learn their 
business thoroughly; and it is always ready to aid in the suppres- 
sion of pot-teaching. 

All this is, as you may imagine, highly satisfactory to me. 
I see that spread of scientific education, about which I have so 



224 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

often permitted myself to worry the public, become, for all 
practical purposes, an accomplished fact. Grateful as I am for all 
that is now being done, in the same direction, in our higher schools 
and universities, I have ceased to have any anxiety about the 
wealthier classes. Scientific knowledge is spreading by what 
the alchemists called a " distillatio per ascensum " ; and nothing 
now can prevent it from continuing to distil upwards and per- 
nLeate English society, until, in the remote future, there shall be no 
member of the legislature who does not know as much of science 
as an elementary school-boy; and even the heads of houses in 
our venerable seats of learning shall acknowledge that natural 
science is not merely a sort of University backdoor through 
which inferior men may get at their degrees. Perhaps this apoca- 
lyptic vision is a little wild; and I feel I ought to ask pardon for 
an outbreak of enthusiasm, which I assure you, is not my com- 
monest failing. 

I have said that the Government is already doing a great deal 
in aid of that kind of technical education for handicraftsmen 
which, to my mind, is alone worth seeking. Perhaps it is doing 
as much as it ought to do, even in this direction. Certainly 
there is another kind of help of the most important character, 
for which we may look elsewhere than to the Government. The 
great mass of mankind have neither the liking, nor the aptitude, 
for either literary, or scientific, or artistic pursuits; nor, indeed, 
for excellence of any sort. Their ambition is to go through life 
with moderate exertion and a fair share of ease, doing common 
things in a common way. And a great blessing and comfort it is 
that the majority of men are of this mind; for the majority of 
things to be done are common things, and are quite well enough 
done when commonly done. The great end of life is not knowl- 
edge but action. What men need is, as much knowledge as they 
can assimilate and organise into a basis for action; give them 
more and it may become injurious. One knows people who are 
as heavy and stupid from undigested learning as others are from 
over-fulness of meat and drink. But a small percentage of the 
population is born with that most excellent quality, a desire for 
excellence, or with special aptitudes of some sort or another; 
Mr. Galton tells us that not more than one in four thousand may 
be expected to attain distinction, and not more than one in a 
million some share of that intensity of instinctive aptitude, that 
burning thirst for excellence, which is called genius. 

Now, the most important object of all educational schemes is 
to catch these exceptional people, and turn them to account for 
the good of society. No man can say where they will crop up; 



TECHNICAL EDUCATION 225 

like their opposites, the fools and knaves, they appear sometimes 
in the palace, and sometimes in the hovel; but the great thing 
to be aimed at, I was almost going to say the most important end 
of all social arrangements, is to keep these glorious sports of 
ISTature from being either corrupted by luxury or starved by 
poverty, and to put them into the position in which they can 
do the work for which they are especially fitted. 

Thus, if a lad in an elementary school showed signs of special 
capacity, I would try to provide him with the means of contin- 
uing liis education after his daily working life had begun; if in 
the evening classes he developed special capabilities in the direc- 
tion of science or of drawing, I would try to secure him an 
apprenticeship to some trade in which those powers would have 
applicability. Or, if he chose to become a teacher, he should 
have the chance of so doing. Finally, to the lad of genius, the one 
in a million, I would make accessible the highest and most com- 
plete training the country could afford. Whatever that might 
cost, depend upon it the investment would be a good one. I 
weigh my words when I say that if the nation could purchase 
a potential Watt, or Davy, or Faraday, at the cost of a hundred 
thousand pounds down, he would be dirt-cheap at the money. 
It is a mere commonplace and everyday piece of knowledge, that 
what these three men did has produced untold millions of wealth, 
in the narrowest economical sense of the word. 

Therefore, as the sum and crown of what is to be done for 
technical education, I look to the provision of a machinery for 
winnowing out the capacities and giving them scope. When I 
was a member of the London School Board, I said, in the course of 
a speech, that our business was to provide a ladder, reaching from 
the gutter to the university, along which every child in the three 
kingdoms should have the chance of climbing as far as he was 
fit to go. This phrase was so much bandied about at the time, 
that, to say truth, I am rather tired of it ; but I know of no other 
which so fully expresses my belief, not only about education in 
general, but about technical education in particular. 

The essential foundation of all the organisation needed for 
the promotion of education among handicraftsmen will, I be- 
lieve, exist in this country, when every working lad can feel 
that society has done as much as lies in its power to remove all 
needles and artificial obstacles from his path; that there is no 
barrier, except such as exists in the nature of things, between 
himself and whatever place in the social organisation he is fitted 
to fill; and, more than this, that, if he has capacity and industry, 



226 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

a hand is held out to help him along any path which is wisely 
and honestly chosen. 

I have endeavoured to point out to you that a great deal of 
such an organisation already exists; and I am glad to be able to 
add that there is a good prospect that what is wanting will, before 
long, be supplemented. 

Those powerful and wealthy societies, the livery companies 
of the City of London, remembering that they are the heirs and 
representatives of the trade guilds of the Middle Ages, are inter- 
esting themselves in the question. So far back as 1872 the Society 
of Arts organised a system of instruction in the technology of 
arts and manufactures, for persons actually employed in factor- 
ies and workshops, who desired to extend and improve their knowl- 
edge of the theory and practice of their particular avocations ; * 
and a considerable subsidy, in aid of the efforts of the Society, 
was liberally granted by the Clothworkers' Company. We have 
here the hopeful commencement of a rational organisation for 
the promotion of excellence among handicraftsmen. Quite re- 
cently, other of the livery companies have determined upon giving 
their powerful, and, indeed, almost boundless, aid to the improve- 
ment of the teaching of handicrafts. They have already gone so 
far as to appoint a committee to act for them; and I betray no 
confidence in adding that, some time since, the committee sought 
the advice and assistance of several persons, myself among the 
number. 

Of course I cannot tell you what may be the result of the 
deliberations of the committee; but we may all fairly hope that, 
before long, steps which will have a weighty and a lasting influ- 
ence on the growth and spread of sound and thorough teaching 
among the handicraftsmen f of this country will be taken by the 
livery companies of London. 

[This hope has been fully justified by the establishment of 
the Cowper Street Schools, and that of the Central Institution of 
the City and Guilds of London Institute.] 

* See the Programme for 1878, issued by the Society of Arts, p. 14. 

t It is perhaps advisable to remark that the important question of 
the professional education of managers of industrial works is not touched 
in the foregoing remarks. 



TECHNICAL EDUCATION 227 



xvn. 

ADDRESS ON BEHALF OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIA- 
TION FOE THE PROMOTION OF TECHNICAL 
EDUCATION. 

MR. !Mayor and Gentlemen, — It must be a matter of sin- 
cere satisfaction to tliose who, like myself, liave for many- 
years past been convinced of the vital importance of 
technical education to this country to see that that subject is 
now being taken up by some of the most important of our manu- 
facturing towns. The evidence which is afforded of the public 
interest in the matter by such meetings as those at Liverpool and 
Newcastle, and, last but not least, by that at which I have the 
honour to be present to-day, may convince us all, I think, that the 
question has passed out of the region of speculation into that of 
action. I need hardly say to any one here that the task which 
our Association contemplates is not only one of primary importance 
— I may say of vital importance — to the welfare of the country; 
but that it is one of great extent and of vast difficulty. There is 
a well-worn adage that those who set out upon a great enterprise 
would do well to count the cost. I am not sure that this is always 
true. I think that some of the very greatest enterprises in this 
world have been carried out successfully simply because the people 
who undertook them did not count the cost; and I am much of 
opinion that, in this very case, the most instructive consideration 
for us is the cost of doing nothing. But there is one thing 
that is perfectly certain^, and it is that, in undertaking all enter- 
prises, one of the most important conditions of success is to have a 
perfectly clear comprehension of what you want to do — to have 
that before your minds before you set out, and from that point 
of view to consider carefully the measures which are best adapted 
to the end. 

Mr. Acland has just given you an excellent account of what 
is properly and strictly understood by technical education; but I 
venture to think that the purpose of this Association may be 
stated in somewhat broader terms, and that the object we have 
in view is the development of the industrial productivity of the 



228 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

country to tlie uttermost limits consistent with social welfare. 
And you will observe that, in thus widening the definition of our 
object, I have gone no further than the Mayor in his speech, 
when he not obscurely hinted — and most justly hinted — that in 
dealing with this question there are other matters than technical 
education, in the strict sense, to be considered. 

It would be extreme presumption on my part if I were to 
attempt to tell an audience of gentlemen intimately acquainted 
with all branches of industry and commerce, such as I see before 
me, in what ^Banner the practical details of the operations that 
we propose are to be carried out. I am absolutely ignorant both 
of trade and of commerce, and upon such matters I cannot venture 
to say a solitary word. But there is one direction in which I 
think it possible I may be of service — not much perhaps, but still 
of some, — because this matter, in the first place, involves the 
consideration of methods of education with which it has been my 
business to occupy myself during the greater part of my life ; and, 
in the second place, it involves attention to some of those broad 
facts and laws of nature with which it has been my business to 
acquaint myself to the best of my ability. And what I think may 
be possible is this, that if I succeed in putting before you — as 
briefly as I can, but in clear and connected shape — what strikes 
me as the programme that we have eventually to carry out, and 
what are the indispensable conditions of success, that that proceed- 
ing, whether the conclusions at which I arrive be such as you 
approve or as you disapprove, will nevertheless help to clear the 
course. In this and in all complicated matters we must remem- 
ber a saying of Bacon, which may be freely translated thus: 
" Consistent error is very often vastly more useful than muddle- 
headed truth." At any rate, if there be any error in the conclu- 
sions I shall put before you, I will do my best to make the error 
perfectly clear and plain. 

Now, looking at the question of what we want to do in this 
broad and general way, it appears to me that it is necessary for us, 
in the first place, to amend and improve our system of primary 
education in such a fashion as will make it a proper preparation 
for the business of life. In the second place, I think we have to 
consider what measures may best be adopted for the development 
to its uttermost of that which may be called technical skill; and, 
in the third place, I think we have to consider what other matters 
there are for us to attend to, what other arrangements have to be 
kept carefully in sight in order that, while pursuing these ends, 
we do not forget that which is the end of civil existence, I mean a 



SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 229 

stable social state without which all other measures are merely 
futile, and, in effect, modes of going faster to ruin. 

You are aware — no people should know the fact better than 
Manchester people — that, within the last seventeen years, a vast 
system of primary education has been created and extended over 
the whole country. I had some part in the original organisation 
of this system in London, and I am glad to think that, after all 
these years, I can look back upon that period of my life as perhaps 
the part of it least wasted. 

No one can doubt that this system of primary education has 
done wonders for our population; but, from our point of view, I 
do not think anybody can doubt that it still has very consider- 
able defects. It has the defect which is common to all the educa- 
tional systems which we have inherited — it is too bookish, too 
little practical. The child is brought too little into contact with 
actual facts and things, and as the system stands at present it 
constitutes next to no education of those particular faculties 
which are of the utmost importance to industrial life — I mean 
the faculty of observation, the faculty of working accurately, of 
dealing with things instead of with words. I do not propose to 
enlarge upon this topic, but I would venture to suggest that there 
are one or two remedial measures which are imperatively needed; 
indeed, they have already been alluded to by Mr. Acland. Those 
which strike me as of the greatest importance are two, and the first 
of them is the teaching of drawing. In my judgment, there is no 
mode of exercising the faculty of observation and the faculty of 
accurate reproduction of that which is observed, no discipline 
which so readily tests error in these matters, as drawing properly 
taught. And by that I do not mean artistic drawing; I mean 
figuring natural objects: making plans and sections, approaching 
geometrical rather than artistic drawing. I do not wish to exag- 
gerate, but I declare to you that, in my judgment, the child 
who has been taught to make an accurate elevation, plan and sec- 
tion of a pint pot has had an admirable training in accuracy of 
eye and hand. I am not talking about artistic education. That is 
not the question. Accuracy is the foundation of everything else, 
and instruction in artistic drawing is something which may be 
put off till a later stage. jSTothing has struck me more in the 
course of my life than the loss which persons, who are pursuing 
scientific knowledge of any kind, sustain from the difficulties 
which arise because they never have been taught elementary draw- 
ing; and I am. glad to say that in Eton, a school of whose govern- 
ing body I have the honour of being a member, we some years ago 
made drawing imperative on the whole school. 



230 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

The other matter in which we want some systematic and good 
teaching is what I have hardly a name for, but which may best 
be explained as a sort of developed object lessons such as Mr. 
Acland adverted to. Anybody who knows his business in science 
can make anything subservient to that purpose. You know it was 
said of Dean Swift that he could write an admirable poem upon 
a broomstick, and the man who has a real knowledge of science 
can make the commonest object in the world subservient to an 
introduction to the principles and greater truths of natural 
knowledge. It is in that way that your science must be taught 
if it is to be of real service. Do not suppose any amount of book 
work, any repetition by rote of catechisms and other abominations 
of that kind are of value for our object. That is mere wasting of 
time. But take the commonest object and lead the child from 
that foundation to such truths of a higher order as may be within 
his grasp. With regard to drawing, I do not think there is any 
practical difficulty; but in respect to the scientific object lessons 
you want teachers trained in a manner different from that which 
now prevails. 

If it is found practicable to add further training of the hand 
and eye by instruction in modelling or in simple carpentry, well 
and good. But I should stop at this point. The elementary 
schools are already charged with quite as much as they can do 
properly; and I do not believe that any good can come of burden- 
ing them with special technical instruction. Out of that, I think, 
harm would come. 

Now let me pass to my second point, which is the development 
of technical skill. Everybody here is aware that at this present 
moment there is hardly a branch of trade or of commerce which 
does not depend, more or less directly, upon some department or 
other of physical science, which does not involve, for its success- 
ful pursuit, reasoning from scientific data. Our machinery, our 
chemical processes or dyeworks, and a thousand operations which 
it is not necessary to mention, are all directly and immediately 
connected with science. You have to look among your workmen 
and foremen for persons who shall intelligently grasp the modifi- 
cations, based upon science, which are constantly being introduced 
into these industrial processes. I do not mean that you want 
professional chemists, or physicists, or mathematicians, or the like, 
but you want people sufficiently familiar with the broad principles 
which underlie industrial operations to be able to adapt them- 
selves to new conditions. Such qualifications can only be secured 
by a sort of scientific instruction which occupies a midway place 
between those primary notions given in the elementary schools 



TECHNICAL EDUCATION 231 

and those more advanced studies which would be carried out in 
the technical schools. 

You are aware that, at present, a very large machinery is in 
operation for the purpose of giving this instruction. I don't refer 
merely to such work as is being done at Owens College here, for 
example, or at other local colleges. I allude to the larger opera- 
tions of the Science and Art Department, with which I have been 
connected for a great many years. I constantly hear a great m.any 
objections raised to the work of the Science and Art Department. 
If you will allow me to say so, my connection with that depart- 
ment — which, I am happy to say, remains, and which I am very 
proud of — is purely honorary; and, if it appeared to me to be 
right to criticise that department with merciless severity, the 
Lord President, if he were inclined to resent my proceedings, could 
do nothing more than dismiss me. Therefore you may believe that 
1 speak with absolute impartiality. My impression is this, not 
that it is faultless, nor that it has not various defects, nor that 
there are not sundry lacunae which want filling up ; but that, if we 
consider the conditions under which the Department works, we 
shall see that certain defects are inseparable from those conditions. 
People talk of the want of flexibility of the Department, of its 
being bound by strict rules. Now, will any man of common sense 
who has had anything to do with the administration of public 
funds or knows the humour of the House of Commons on these 
matters — will any man who is in the smallest degree acquainted 
with the practical working of State departments of any kind, 
imagine that such a department could be other than bound by 
minutely defined regulations? Can he imagine that the work of 
the department should go on fairly and in such a manner as to 
be free from just criticism, unless it were bound by certain definite 
and fixed rules? I cannot imagine it. 

The next objection of importance that I have heard commonly 
repeated is that the teaching is too theoretical, that there is in- 
sufficient practical teaching. I venture to say that there is no 
one who has taken more pains to insist upon the comparative 
uselessness of scientific teaching without practical work than I 
have ; I venture to say that there are no persons who are more cog- 
nisant of these defects in the work of the Science and Art De- 
partment than those who administer it. But those who talk in 
this way should acquaint themselves with the fact that proper prac- 
tical instruction is a matter of no small difficulty in the present 
scarcity of properly taught teachers, that it is very costly, and 
that, in some branches of science, there are other difficulties which 
I won't allude to. But it is a matter of fact that, wherever it has 



232 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

been possible, practical teaching has been introduced, and has been 
made an essential element in examination; and no doubt if the 
House of Commons would grant unlimited means, and if proper 
teachers were to hand, as thick as blackberries, there would not 
be much difficulty in organising a complete system of practical 
instruction and examination ancillary to the present science 
classes. Those who quarrel with the present state of affairs would 
be better advised if, instead of groaning over the shortcomings of 
the present system, they would put before themselves these two 
questions — Is it possible under the conditions to invent any better 
system? Is it possible under the conditions to enlarge the work 
of practical teaching and practical examination which is the one 
desire of those who administer the department? That is all I 
have to say upon that subject. 

Supposing we have this teaching of what I may call intermediate 
science, what we want next is technical instruction, in the strict 
sense of the word technical; I mean instruction in that kind of 
knowledge which is essential to the successful prosecution of the 
several branches of trade and industry. Now, the best way of 
obtaining this end is a matter about which the most experienced 
persons entertain very diverse opinions. I do not for one moment 
pretend to dogmatise about it; I can only tell you what the opin- 
ion is that I have formed from hearing the views of those who 
are certainly best qualified to judge, from those who have tested 
the various methods of conveying this instruction. I think we 
have before us three possibilities. We have, in the first place, 
trade schools — ^I mean schools in which branches of trade are 
taught. We have, in the next place, schools attached to factories 
for the purpose of instructing young apprentices and others who 
go there, and who aim at becoming intelligent workmen and ca- 
pable foremen. We have, lastly, the system of day classes and 
evening classes. With regard to the first there is this objection, 
that they can be attended only by those who are not obliged to 
earn their bread, and consequently that they will reach only a 
very small fraction of the population. Moreover, the expense of 
trade schools is enormous, and those who are best able to judge 
assure me that, inasmuch as the work which they do is not done 
under conditions of pecuniary success or failure, it is apt to be too 
amateurish and speculative, and that it does not prepare the 
worker for the real conditions under which he will have to carry 
out his work. In any case, the fact that the schools are very 
expensive, and the fact that they are accessible only to a small 
portion of the population, seem to me to constitute a very serious 
objection to them. I suppose the best of all possible organisa- 



TECHNICAL EDUCATION 233 

tions is that of a school attached to a factory, where the employ- 
er has an interest in seeing that the instruction given is of a thor- 
oughly practical kind, and where the pupils pass gradually by 
successive stages to the position of actual workmen. Schools of 
this kind exist in various parts of the country, but it is obvious 
that they are not likely to be reached by any large part of the 
population; so that it appears to me we are shut up practically 
to schools accessible to those who are earning their bread, and in 
such cases they must be essentially evening classes. I am strongly 
of opinion that classes of this kind do an immense amount of 
good; that they have this admirable quality, that they involve vol- 
untary attendance, take no man out of his position, but enable 
any who chooses, to make the best of the position he happens to 
occupy. 

Suppose that all these things are desirable, what is the best way 
of obtaining them? I must confess that I have a strong prejudice 
in favour of carrying out undertakings of this kind, which at 
first, at any rate, must be to a great extent tentative and ex- 
perimental, by private effort. I don't believe that the man livss 
at this present time who is competent to organise a final system of 
technical education. I believe that all attempts made in that 
direction must for many years to come be experimental, and 
that we must get to success through a series of blunders. Now 
that work is far better performed by private enterprise than in 
any other way. But there is another method which I think is 
permissible, and not only permissible but highly recommendable in 
this case, and that is the method of allowing the locality itself 
in which any branch of industry is pursued to be its own judge 
of its own wants, and to tax itself under certain conditions for 
the purpose of carrying out any scheme of technical education 
adapted to its needs. I am aware that there are many extreme 
theorists of the individualist school who hold that all this is 
very wicked and very wrong, and that by leaving things to them- 
selves they will get right. Well, my experience of the world is 
that things left to themselves don't get right. I believe it to be 
sound doctrine that a municipality — and the State itself for that 
matter — is a corporation existing for the benefit of its members, 
and that here, as in all other cases, it is for the majority to 
determine that which is for the good of the whole, and to act 
upon that. That is the principle which underlies the whole 
theory of government in this country, and if it is wrong we shall 
have to go back a long way. But you may ask me, " This process 
of local taxation can only be carried out under the authority 
of an Act of Parliament, and do you propose to let any municipal- 



234 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

ity or any local authority have carte hlancJie in these matters; is 
the Legislature to allow it to tax the whole body of its members 
to any extent it pleases and for any purposes it pleases ? " I should 
reply, certainly not. 

Let me point out to you that at this present moment it passes 
the wit of man, so far as I know, to give a legal definition of 
technical education. If you expect to have an Act of Parliament 
with a definition which shall include all that ought to be included, 
and exclude all that ought to be excluded, I think you will have 
to wait a very long time. I imagine the whole matter is in a 
tentative state. You don't know what you will be called upon to 
do, and so you must try and you must blunder. Under these cir- 
cumstances it is obvious that there are two alternatives. One of 
these is to give a free hand to each locality. Well, it is within 
my knowledge that there are a good many people with wonderful, 
strange, and wild notions as to what ought to be done in technical 
education, and it is quite possible that in some places, and espe- 
cially in small places, where there are few persons who take an 
interest in these things, you will have very remarkable projects put 
forth, and in that case the sole court of appeal for those tax- 
payers, who did not approve of such projects, would be a court 
of law. I suppose the judges would have to settle what is tech- 
nical education. That would not be an edifying process, I think, 
and certainly it would be a very costly one. The other alternative 
is the principle adopted in the bill of last year now abandoned. 
I don't say whether the bill was right or wrong in detail. I am 
dealing now only with the principle of the bill, which appears to 
me to have been very often misunderstood. It has been said that 
it gave the whole of technical education into the hands of the 
Science and Art Department. It appears to me nothing could 
be more unfounded than that assertion. All I understand the 
Government proposed to do was to provide some authority who 
should have power to say in case any scheme was proposed, " Well, 
this comes within the four corners of the Act of Parliament, work 
it as you like ; " or if it was an obviously questionable project, 
should take upon itself the responsibility of saying, " No, that is 
not what the Legislature intended; amend your scheme." There 
was no initiative, no control; there was simply this power of giv- 
ing authority to decide upon the meaning of the Act of Parlia- 
ment to a particular department of the State, whichever it might 
be ; and it seems to me that that is a very much simpler and better 
process than relegating the whole question to the law courts. I 
think that here, or anywhere else, people must be extremely san- 
iguine if they suppose that the House of Commons and the House 



TECHNICAL EDUCATION 235 

of Lords will ever dream, of giving any local authority unlimited 
power to tax the inhabitants of a district for any object it pleases. 
I should say that was not in the range of practical politics. 
Well, I put that before you as a matter for your consideration. 

Another very important point in this connection is the question" 
of the supply of teachers. I should say that is one of the greatest 
difficulties which beset the whole problem before us. I do not 
wish in the slightest degree to criticise the existing system of pre- 
paring teachers for ordinary school work. I have nothing to say 
about it. But what I do wish to say, and what I trust I may im- 
press on your minds firmly is this, that for the purpose of obtain- 
ing persons competent to teach science or to act as technical teach- 
ers, a different system must be adopted. For this purpose a man 
m.ust know what he is about thoroughly, and be able to deal with 
his subject as if it were the business of his ordinary life. For 
this purpose, for the obtaining of teachers of science and of tech- 
nical classes, the system of catching a boy or girl young, making 
a pupil teacher of him, compelling the poor little mortal to pour 
from his little bucket, into a still smaller bucket, that which has 
just been poured into it out of a big bucket; and passing him 
afterwards through the training college, where his life is devoted 
to filling the bucket from the pump from morning till night, 
without time for thought or reflection, is a system which should 
not continue. Let me assure you that it will not do for us, 
that you had better give the attempt up than try that system. 
I remember somewhere reading of an interview between the poet 
Southey and a good Quaker. Southey was a man of marvellous 
powers of work. He had a habit of dividing his time into little 
parts each of which was filled up, and he told the Quaker what 
he did in this hour and that, and so on through the day until 
far into the night. The Quaker listened, and at the close said, 
" Well, but friend Southey, when dost thee think ? " The system 
which I am now adverting to is arraigned and condemned by put- 
ting that question to it. When does the unhappy pupil teacher, 
or over-drilled student of a training college, find any time to 
think? I am sure if I were in their place I could not. I repeat, 
that kind of thing will not do for science teachers. For science 
teachers must have knowledge, and knowledge is not to be ac- 
quired on these terms. The power of repetition is, but that is 
not knowledge. The knowledge which is absolutely requisite in 
dealing with young children is the knowledge you possess, as you 
would know your own business, and which you can just turn 
about as if you were explaining to a boy a matter of everyday life. 

So far as science teaching and technical education are con- 



236 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

cerned, the most important of all things is to provide the machin- 
ery for training proper teachers. The Department of Science and 
Art has been at that work for years and years, and though nnable 
under present conditions to do so much as could be wished, it has, 
I believe, already begun to leaven the lump to a very considerable 
extent. If technical education is to be carried out on the scale 
at present contemplated, this particular necessity must be specially 
and most seriously provided for. And there is another difficulty, 
namely, that when you have got your science or technical teacher 
it may not be easy to keep him. You have educated a man — a 
clever fellow very likely — on the understanding that he is to be a 
teacher. But the business of teaching is not a very lucrative and 
not a very attractive one, and an able man who has had a good 
training is under extreme temptations to carry his knowledge and 
his skill to a better market, in which case you have had all your 
trouble for nothing. It has often occurred to me that probably 
nothing would be of more service in this matter than the creation 
of a number of not very large bursaries or exhibitions, to be gained 
by persons nominated by the authorities of the various science col- 
leges and schools of the country — persons such as they thought 
to be well qualified for the teaching business — and to be held for 
a certain term of years, during which the holders should be bound 
to teach. I believe that some measure of this kind would do 
more to secure a good supply of teachers than anything else. 
Pray note that I do not suggest that you should try to get hold 
of good teachers by competitive examination. That is hot the 
best way of getting men of that special qualification. An effectual 
method would be to ask professors and teachers of any institution 
to recommend men who, to their own knowledge, are worthy of 
such support, and are likely to turn it to good account. 

I trust I am not detaining you too long; but there remains yet 
one other matter which I think is of profound importance, per- 
haps of more importance than all the rest, on which I earnestly 
beg to be permitted to say some few words. It is the need, while 
doing all these things, of keeping an eye, and an anxious eye, 
upon those measures which are necessary for the preservation of 
that stable and sound condition of the whole social organism which 
is the essential condition of real progress, and a chief end of all 
education. You will all recollect that some time ago there was a 
scandal and a great outcry about certain cutlasses and bayonets 
which had been supplied to our troops and sailors. These warlike 
implements were polished as bright as rubbing could make them; 
they were very well sharpened ; they looked lovely. But when they 
were applied to the test of the work of war they broke and were 



TECHNICAL EDUCATION 237 

bent, and proved more likely to hurt the hand of him that used 
them than to do any harm to tha enemy. Let me apply that ana- 
logy to the effect of education, which is a sharpening and polish- 
ing of the mind. You may develop the intellectual side of people 
as far as you like, and you may confer upon them all the skill that 
training and instruction can give ; but, if there is not, underneath 
all that outside form and superficial polish, the firm fibre of 
healthy manhood and earnest desire to do well, your labour is 
absolutely in vain. 

Let me further call your attention to the fact that the ter- 
rible battle of competition between the different nations of the 
world is no transitory phenomenon, and does not depend upon 
this or that fluctuation of the market, or upon any condition 
that is likely to pass away. It is the inevitable result of that 
which takes place throughout nature and affects man's part of 
nature as much as any other — namely, the struggle for existence, 
arising out of the constant tendency of all creatures in the animat- 
ed world to multiply indefinitely. It is that, if you look at it, 
which is at the bottom of all the great movements of history. It 
is that inherent tendency of the social organism to generate the 
causes of its own destruction, never yet counteracted, which has 
been at the bottom of half the catastrophes which have ruined 
States. We are at present in the swim of one of those vast move- 
ments in which, with a population far in excess of that which we 
can feed, we are saved from a catastrophe, through the impossibil- 
ity of feeding them, solely by our possession of a fair share of 
the markets of the world. And in order that that fair share 
may be retained, it is absolutely necessary that we should be able 
to produce commodities which we can exchange with food-growing 
people, and which they will take, rather than those of our rivals, 
on the ground of their greater cheapness or of their greater excel- 
lence. That is the whole story. And our course, let me say, is not 
actuated by mere motives of ambition or by mere motives of 
greed. Those doubtless are visible enough on the surface of these 
great movements, but the movements themselves have far deeper 
sources. If there were no such things as ambition and greed in 
this world, the struggle for existence would arise from the same 
causes. 

Our sole chance of succeeding in a competition, which must 
constantly become more and more severe, is that our people shall 
not only have the knowledge and the skill which are required, 
but that they shall have the will and the energy and the honesty, 
without which neither knowledge nor skill can be of any perma- 
nent avail. This is what I mean by a stable social condition. 



238 SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 

because any other condition than this, any social condition in 
which the development of wealth involves the misery, the physical 
weakness, and the degradation of the worker, is absolutely and 
infallibly doomed to collapse. Tour bayonets and cutlasses will 
break under your hand, and there will go on accumulating in 
society a mass of hopeless, physically incompetent, and morally 
degraded people, who are, as it were, a sort of dynamite which, 
sooner or later, when its accumulation becomes sufficient and its 
tension intolerable, will burst the whole fabric. 

I am quite aware that the problem which I have put before 
you and which you know as much about as I do, and a great deal 
more probably, is one extremely difficult to solve. I am fully aware 
that one great factor in industrial success is reasonable cheapness 
of labour. That has been pointed out over and over again, and 
is in itself an axiomatic proposition. And it seems to me that 
of all the social questions which face us at this present time, the 
most serious is how to steer a clear, course between the two horns 
of an obvious dilemma. One of these is the constant tendency 
of competition to lower wages beyond a point at which man can 
remain man — below a point at which decency and cleanliness 
and order and habits of morality and justice can reasonably be 
expected to exist. And the other horn of the dilemma is the 
difficulty of maintaining wages above this point consistently with 
success in industrial competition. I have not the remotest con- 
ception how this problem will eventually work itself out; but of 
this I am perfectly convinced, that the sole course compatible 
with safety lies between the two extremes; between the Scylla of 
successful industrial production with a degraded population, on 
the one side, and the Charybdis of a population, maintained in a 
reasonable and decent state, with failure in industrial competition, 
on the other side. Having this strong conviction, which, indeed, 
I imagine must be that of every person who has ever thought 
seriously about these great problems, I have ventured to put it 
before you in this bare and almost cynical fashion because it will 
justify the strong appeal, which I make to all concerned in this 
work of promoting industrial education, to have a care, at the 
same time, that the conditions of industrial life remain those in 
which the physical energies of the population may be maintained 
at a proper level; in which their moral state may be cared for; 
in which there may be some rays of hope and pleasure in their 
lives; and in which the sole prospect of a life of labour may 
not be an old age of penury. 

These are the chief suggestions I have to offer to you, though 
I have omitted much that I should like to have said, had time 



TECHNICAL EDUCATION 239 

permitted. It may be that some of you feel inclined to look upon 
them as the Utopian dreams of a student. If there be such, let 
me tell you that there are, to my knowledge, manufacturing towns 
in this country, not one-tenth the size, or boasting one-hundredth 
part of the wealth, of Manchester, in which I do not say that 
the programme that I have put before you is completely carried 
out, but in which, at any rate, a wise and intelligent effort had 
been made to realise it;, and in which the main parts of the pro- 
gramme are in course of being worked out. This is not the first 
time that I have had the privilege and pleasure of addressing a 
Manchester audience. I have often enough, before now, thrown 
myself with entire confidence upon the hard-headed intelli- 
gence and the very soft-hearted kindness of Manchester people, 
when I have had a difiicult and complicated scientific argument 
to put before them. If, after the considerations which I have put 
before you — and which, pray be it understood, I by no means 
claim particularly for myself, for I presume they must be in the 
minds of a large number of people who have thought about this 
matter — if it be that these ideas commend themselves to your 
mature reflection, then I am perfectly certain that my appeal to 
you to carry them into practice, with that abundant energy and 
will which have led you to take a foremost part in the great social 
movements of our country many a time beforehand, will not be 
made in vain. I therefore confidently appeal to you to let those 
impulses once more have full sway, and not to rest until you have 
done something better and greater than has yet been done in this 
country in the direction in which we are now going. I heartily 
thank you for the attention which you have been kind enough to 
bestow upon me. The practice of public speaking is one I must 
soon think of leaving off, and I count it a special and peculiar 
honour to have had the opportunity of speaking to you on this 
subject to-day. 



THE END. 



IKDEX. 



Aberdeen University address, 101- 
124 
constitution of, 107 

Accuracy the foundation of every- 
tliing, 229 

Address to medical students, Uni- 
versity College, London, 
161-170 

Agriculture revolutionized by bi- 
ology, 148, 149, 184, 185 

Anatomy and physiology, growth 
of the study of, 167 

Applied science vs. pure science, 83 

Arnold, Matthew, quoted, 76 

Ascidians, circulation in, 30 

Bacon, Lord, quoted, 93, 100, 155 
on truth, 215 
on consistent error, 228 
Bible reading in schools, 211 
Bichat on physiological functions, 

193 
" Biologie " first used by Lamarck 

(1801), 142 
Biological science, methods of, 28 

. and medicine, 183-197 
Biology, the science of life, 21 
methods of criticised, 25-28 
place of in human knowledge, 

32 
on the study of, 139-160 
the ground it covers, 143-149 
best way of studying, 149 
Black, Dr., a pioneer in chemis- 
try of gas, 7-9 
Borelli, develops the conception 

of Descartes, 190 
Bores, enemies of the human race, 

215 
Buffon, quoted, 141 

Cartesian theory of the body, 191 
Catholic priests, training of, 64 
Cell theory in biology, 195 
Cellular pathology, a great step in 

medical progress, 196 
Charlemagne, quoted, 104 
Church, position of in Middle 

Ages, 78 
Circulation in the Ascidians, 30 



241 



Classical languages, value of the 
study of, 52 

Classical learning in the Renas- 
cence, 79 

Clergj^men should have scientific 
knowledge, 63, 64 

Combe, George, quoted, 73 

Compte, " Positive Philosophy," 
quoted, 26, 27 

Compulsory education settled by 
nature, 45 

Crusades, effect of on Spain, 79 

Descartes, and physiology, 189 
Dissections, object of, 151 

Education, necessity of, 41 
liberal, nature of, 41 
needed to play the game of 

life, 44 
artificial, a preparation for 

nature's education, 46 
of women, 38 
medical, reform of, 116 
relation of art and science to, 

86-100 
technical, 215-239 
Elementary education, ideal, 126 

in physiology, 156-160 
Elementary science teaching, 134 
Emancipation — Black and white, 
36-40 
of women necessary, 39 
Endowment of colleges, 107 

of research, need of, 119 
England, condition of, from 1640 

to 1745, 17 
English universities, " boarding 
schools " for bigger boys, 55 
Examination systems condemned, 
118, 121, 164 
methods of, 132, 133 
Examiners, faults of, 122 

Freeman, quoted, 89, 90, 91 
French and German languages in 
^modern education, 82 

Galen and physiology, 191 
Galileo, on " paper philosophers,'* 
148 



242 



INDEX 



German and English universities 
compared, 56-58 

Gibbon on Oxford, 103 

Goethe quoted, 124 

Grammar, instruction in not sci- 
entific training, 97 

Hallerian doctrine of vis insita, 
191 

Harvey, the greatest physiologist 
of his age, 159 
founder of modern physiology, 

188, 191 
influence of on Descartes, 189 

Health, laws of, not taught, 48, 49 

Hippocrates, ignorance of, 185 

History, how to teach, 67 

Hobbes on books, 113 

" The Leviathan " quoted, 140 

Hospitals, temples of Esculapius, 
185 

Household science in schools, 208 

Humanists, success of, 79 

Hunter, on nature of spirit, 192 

Intellectual training in schools, 

212-214 
Investigators, the best, 135 

Johns Hopkins University address, 
125-138 

Kant, on ultimate knowledge, 110 
Knowledge not obtainable from 
books, 62 

Lamarck first uses the term " Biol- 
ogic " (1801), 142 

Languages, modern, need of in ed- 
ucation, 82 

Liberal education ; where to find 
it, 41-58 

Literature, the greatest of refined 
pleasures, 58 

Malmesbury on speculation, 144 

Mason, Sir Josiah, founder of a 
scientific college, 75, 76 

Masses, necessity of educating the, 
41 

Materia medica, in medical educa- 
tion, 169, 170 

Matter, indestructibility of, formu- 
lated by Lavoisier, 8 

Medical education, object of, 129 
address on, 161-170 

Medical profession and the state, 
171-182 

Medical students, disadvantages of 
the English, 62 

Medicine and biological science, 
183-197 

Mill, " System of Logic," quoted, 
31 

Moorish civilization, development 
of, 79 



Morality as a guide to conduct, a 
fundamental of education, 47 
and conduct, teaching of in 
schools, 208-212 

Museums, use of in teaching, 152 

Natural history sciences, value of, 
21-35 

Nature's tests of the uneducated, 
45 

Negro, position of under freedom, 
36 

Newton's work for human knowl- 
edge, 140 

Newton's " Principia," 140 

Object teaching in scientific educa- 
tion, 230 

Over-instruction, dangers of, 220 

Oxford University, objects of its 
founders, 54 

Oxygen, discovery of claimed by 
Lavoisier, 11 
discovered by Priestley, 9-11 

Paleontology and classics compared, 

52, 53 
" Paper philosophers " of Galileo, 

147, 155 
Paris, founding of university of, 

104, 105, 106 
Philology, attractions of, 52 
Physical geography, need of, 65 

need of studying, 58 
Physical sciences in English 
schools, 59, 60 
as elements of success, 60, 61 
in education, 69 
necessity of in medical educa- 
tion, 133 
Physical training in schools, 206- 

208 
Physiological science, relation of 
to other branches of knowl- 
edge, 21-35 
Priestly, Joseph, appreciation of, 
1-19 
champion of Unitarianism, 1 
his interest in science, 72 
Pure science vs. applied science, 

83 
Rectorship of a university, impor- 
tance of, 104 

Reformers, errors of, 79 

Revival of science in the Middle 

Ages, 81 
Rule of thumb, the idol of the 

practical man, 73 
School, relation of to university, 

126-128 
School boards, duties and functions 

of, 198-214 
Scholars, duty of at universities, 

123 



INDEX 



24[ 



Scholastic philosophy, overthrow 
of, 111 

Science, value of as knowledge and 
discipline, 112, 113 
is trained and organized com- 
mon sense, 24 
and culture, 72-85 
and art, in relation to educa- 
tion, 86-100 

Scientific education, 59-71 
opposition to, 73 
methods of, 67, 68 

Scientific knowledge, an essential 
of progress, 74 

Scientific Sunday-school, 70, 71 

Scientists, works of, in 19th cen- 
tury, 19 

Scriptures and Aristotle, the foun- 
dation of all knowledge. 111 

Sculpture and modelling, solely hu- 
man, 146 

Size is not grandeur, 138 

Slavery, evil of, to the master, 36 

Sociology, need of education in, 
85 

South London working men's col- 
lege, 41 

Speculation, scope of, 144 

State interference with practice of 
medicine, reasons for, 171- 
173 

Technical education, address on, 
215-239 



Technical education, definition of, 
216 

Thackeray, quoted, 59 

Trade dependent on science, 230 

Trembley, discoveries of in physiol- 
ogy, 191 

Universities : Actual and ideal, 101- 

124 
University, founding of first, 105 
the ideal, 109 
of the future, 123 
relation of to schools, 126- 

128 
curriculum, 129 

Vivisection, laws against foolish, 
159, 160 

Whewell, "The Philosophy of the 
Inductive Sciences," quoted, 
27 

Will, freedom of, denied by Priest- 
ley, 12 

Workshops, the only schools for 
handicrafts, 219 

Wolff, C. F., discoveries of, in 
physiology, 191 

Women, social and political rights 
of, 37-40 
education of, 38-40 

Wordsworth, " Peter Bell," quoted, 
84 



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